We’ve supported IPv6 on customer websites for many years, but it didn’t default to “on”: customers had to explicitly enable it in our account management control panel.
Starting today, IPv6 is on by default for all new accounts signed up with us (although you can turn it off if you want).
In addition, we’re beginning a gradual process of slowly enabling IPv6 for existing sites if they haven’t chosen to disable it. If you don’t want IPv6 to be enabled for your site in the future, you should use our control panel to disable it.
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The PHP developers recently released versions 7.1.27, 7.2.16 and 7.3.3 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.2.15 and 7.3.2 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
We’ve added a feature that allows you to do a complete “one-click” restore of your site from the control panel. The restore includes all website files, databases, and PHP settings at once, giving you a way to quickly “rollback” a site without needing to use extra tools like FTP or phpMyAdmin.
The backups page in our support section has more details.
The PHP developers recently released versions 5.6.40, 7.1.26, 7.2.14 and 7.3.1 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 5.6, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
In addition, ionCube Loader is now available for the PHP 7.3 series, so we’ve made that an option you can enable in our “My Account” control panel.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
We’ve updated the SSL/TLS security settings on our servers to match current “best practices” for security, disabling the long-obsolete, insecure “SSLv3” in all cases.
Our customers shouldn’t notice any changes. We made this change on our own websites a long time ago with no reports of problems, and nearly all of the largest sites on the Internet have done the same. We’re just mentioning this so that people know to contact us in the unlikely event they do have any trouble.
That said, if you do have any trouble, it’s probably because you’re using a long-outdated, insecure web browser that you should update. You can check your browser by visiting www.howsmyssl.com. If you can’t update it, using a different browser on your computer will probably help.
The PHP developers recently released a brand new version, PHP 7.3, so PHP 7.3.0 is now available in our control panel (in addition to the PHP 5.6, 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2 series).
We don’t yet recommend PHP 7.3 for most customers. It’s fairly new and some third-party scripts aren’t yet compatible with it. If you want to try it anyway:
- First, update your site’s PHP scripts (including WordPress, Joomla, any plugins or themes you use, and so on)
- Login to our My Account control panel
- Click PHP Settings
- Click PHP 7.3 series
- Click Save Settings
After updating, test your site carefully to make sure there aren’t any problems.
By the way, if all this seems confusing, we have a page explaining more about PHP versions and updates.
PHP 7.2 is now the default for new accounts
The somewhat older PHP 7.2 series has been out long enough that all modern script software should be compatible with it, and the authors of popular scripts like WordPress recommend using it. Because of that, we’re making PHP 7.2 the default for new customers.
We haven’t changed the version for any existing accounts, but we recommend that all customers use PHP 7.2 if possible (the instructions above explain how to choose the version your site uses). PHP 7.2 is slightly faster than PHP 7.1 and almost twice as fast as PHP 5. If you care about your site’s speed (and you should), always use the newest version of PHP that’s compatible with your scripts.
The PHP developers recently released versions 5.6.39, 7.0.33, 7.1.25, and 7.2.13 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
WordPress 5.0 was recently released, and as always, we’ve updated our WordPress one-click installer to automatically install the latest version for new WordPress sites. WordPress 5.0 works fine on our servers (make sure you’re using a recent version of PHP for your site).
If you’ve previously installed an older version of WordPress, you should update it from within your WordPress Dashboard.
One thing to note is that WordPress 5.0 comes with a new default editor called Gutenberg. Some people like Gutenberg and some people don’t; if you don’t, you can install the Classic Editor Plugin to continue to use the old editor.
Update 11:22 PM Pacific time Dec. 1: The maintenance described below has been completed and all services are running normally.
Between 10:00 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time on Saturday, December 1, 2018, the MySQL database software on some hosting servers will be updated. This will cause an approximately two minute interruption of service on each MySQL-using customer Web site (including WordPress sites) at some point during this period.
Specifically, this will affect servers ending in digits 0, 1, 2 and 3, such as “web01” and “web10”. (All other servers were previously updated on November 17 or November 24.)
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