Status of PHP in Web Hosting. WordPress 5.1.1 is out. Gutenberg block add-on with 19 ready made blocks.

Today on Episode 29 Web Hosting Podcast.  The status of PHP and web hosting. WordPress 5.1.1 has been released with some great improvements.  A gutenberg block add-on with 19 ready made blocks.

The status of PHP and hosting.

I found a few articles regarding the deprecation of PHP before 7.1 and that relates to the amount of sites still using old and no longer supported versions of PHP.  I was stunned, to say the least, that the number of users using no longer supported versions of PHP is so high.  According to this article by kinsta.com from January 24th, a staggering number of users, 77.5%, are still using outdated versions of PHP.  That number is mind blowing.  Considering that 33% of all websites use WordPress and PHP is used by 78% of all websites on the internet, that is a lot of outdated and potentially vulnerable websites.   I know I keep saying words like stunned and staggering, but there is no other way to put it.  I am having a hard time understanding why there is not a bigger push to get users on current and supported versions of PHP.  There are some great benefits to using PHP 7.2.  So why should you make the switch to a newer version of PHP.

1. Security.  Older versions of PHP are no longer being patched for security issues and vulnerabilities.  
2. Performance.  PHP 7.2 has been shown to be almost twice as fast as previous versions of PHP.  In a world where site speed is important, just moving from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.2 could dramatically improve site speed performance.  For hosting providers, PHP 7.2 uses less memory, cpu and can handle more requests per second than older versions of PHP.  This means lower overall server load.
3. Support. Older versions of PHP require more development to maintain backwards compatibility.  Things will eventually break and moving forward on a better version of a code base is needed.
4. New Features.  PHP 7.2 has a load of new features that developers can take advantage of to add site improvements.  These features can only be used on the latest versions of PHP.
5. It is just the right thing to do.  It really is.  For the safety of the internet as a whole, we all should be doing our part to make sure our applications support the latest secure versions available.  Shared hosting, which most of us use, is a bad place to be when a few website owners don’t want to update their application.  It puts all the sites on the server at risk to total take over and hacking.  You are only as secure as the weakest link or website.

Interesting fact about stats for WordPress along with PHP versions.

WordPress 5.1.1 is released.

Notes
From the release notes.Site health notifications.  This release introduces WordPress’s first Site Health features. WordPress will start showing notices to administrators of sites that run long-outdated versions of PHP, which is the programming language that powers WordPress.  When you install new plugins, WordPress’s Site Health features will check them against the version of PHP you’re running. If the plugin requires a version that won’t work with your site, WordPress will keep you from installing that plugin. FINALLY!!

It is recommended to install the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin.  This