Difference and exceptions of using 444 response?

Question

Nginx

Good day. I am currently setting up a VPS for a Wordpress site. I don't have much experience, I'm learning.
I paid attention to examples of configs, in the same config answers 403, 404 and 444 are used. Judging from the documentation, you can safely and even need to use 444 if you want to reduce the load. I suspect those configs were written by copy-paste.
For example, when protecting directories and WP files

location ~* /wp-content/.*.php$ { return 444; }
location ~* /(?:uploads|files)/.*.php$ { return 444; }
location ~* /themes/.*.php$ { return 444; }
location ~* /wp-content/.*.php$ { return 444; }
location ~* /(?:uploads|files)/.*.php$ { return 444; }
location ~* /themes/.*.php$ { return 444; }

Initially it was deny all; (403). How is it better and why? In what situations is it better not to use 444?

Answer 1

Code 444 is non-standard. This is a feature of nginx .
When nginx sees a 444, it doesn't waste resources sending headers, it just silently closes the connection (sends an RTS packet).