Bart Kuijper

<p>When displaying a post or comment with avatars enabled, WordPress will always check for the existence of a Gravatar. (Note: even the default avatars ‘mystery person’ and ‘blank’ are in fact Gravatars served from gravatar.com.) WordPress does this by sending an MD5 hash of every displayed post or comment author’s email address to gravatar.com. Even with many plugins that introduce locally stored default or user avatars, this check still happens. On top of that, some themes or plugins force (Gr)avatars to load even if the display of avatars is disabled completely in WordPress’ settings. If for whatever reason you do not wish for Gravatar to receive these requests (which some people have voiced GDPR concerns about), this plugin is for you.</p>
<p>The way it works is every time WordPress attempts to display an avatar, this plugin first checks if the image is about to be retrieved from gravatar.com. If it is, the URL is changed to the locally stored ‘mystery person’ image (included with this plugin). If the avatar has any other source, this plugin doesn’t interfere.</p>
<p>Gravatars are also removed from the Discussion page in Settings and replaced with the locally stored ‘mystery person’ image. Again, any non-Gravatar images are left alone.</p>
<p>Upon activation of this plugin, if a Gravatar is selected as the default avatar, that setting is changed to the locally stored ‘mystery person’ image. If any non-Gravatar avatar is selected, that setting isn’t changed.</p>
<p>Upon deactivation of this plugin, if the locally stored ‘mystery person’ image is selected as the default avatar, that setting is changed to the Gravatar logo. If any non-Gravatar avatar is selected, that setting isn’t changed.</p>


Redirect Gravatar requests

All requests to load an avatar from gravatar.com are redirected to a local image, preventing Gravatar from potentially gathering data about your site  …

Rafael @ Nocksoft

<p>Adds support for local avatars for your users so you don’t have to use Gravatar. You can also redirect all Gravatar requests to a local avatar.</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Adds support for local avatars for authors so that you dont need to use an Gravatar account</li>
<li>Option to redirect all Gravatar requests to a local avatar to improve performance and privacy</li>
</ul>
<h3>Setup</h3>
<ul>
<li>Install plugin.</li>
<li>(optional) Go to user profiles to tick local avatars and choose your local personal avatar.</li>
<li>(optional) Go to “Settings” -> “Local Avatars” to setup global settings like deactivation of Gravatar.</li>
</ul>


Local Avatars by Nocksoft

Adds support for local avatars as an alternative to Gravatar.

Redirect Gravatar requests vs Local Avatars by Nocksoft