When installing WordPress onto your website, you may notice a plugin named “Hello Dolly“. It seems like a harmless plugin, as it is created by the co-founder of WordPress, and is installed with every single WordPress website. But the opposite shows to be true.
What is Hello Dolly?
“Hello, Dolly” is a famous song written by Louis Armstrong. You also may recognize this name from the well-known performance and screenplay Hello Dolly. The Hello Dolly Plugin is a reference to Armstrong’s famous song, and it displays lyrics to the song on the main dashboard.
Should I delete Hello Dolly?
The Hello Dolly plugin may seem harmless, but it causes many problems. It takes up unnecessary space and can be hacked easily. From many hackers, early plugins like Hello Dolly tend to hide malicious code. This plugin just exists as a tradition, to remind early users of WordPress how far the blogging platform has come. I would recommend deleting this plugin to improve your site’s performance and security.
I can’t delete Hello Dolly
If you have trouble deleting the Hello Dolly plugin, there are two options to delete it.
One option for getting rid of the Hello Dolly plugin is to get the Dolly plugin by Brad Parbs. Dolly will keep Hello Dolly deactivated, but will not delete it.
Another option for getting rid of the plugin is to delete it manually. You can log into your website’s file directory with FileZilla or delete it through the cPanel File Manager. From the directory, go into the folder “wp-content” and then “plugins”. There you will find a folder named “hello-dolly” which you can delete through your file manager. You can do the same for other plugins through this method.