PHP Users Beware

Normally I would send this out as a client alert, but given the enormity of this, I think it needs wider distribution.

PHP is the “P” in the LAMP web server stack as in Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP.  PHP is the scripting language turned programming language that many web servers run on.

January 1, 2019 is a date that needs to be etched into your (virtual) daytimer.  It is the date on which support for older versions of PHP will end.

Version 5.6 of PHP will no longer get security patches as of December 31 – about 10 weeks from now.  Version 7.0 will stop getting patches in about 8 weeks.

If you are running Version 5 of PHP after the end of the year, ZDNet asks “do you feel lucky?”

W3Techs says that 78% of websites using PHP are using Version 5.

Of course you have to consider whether upgrading your website to a supported version of PHP will break anything, so you do have to test things, but, in general, it will probably work.

So, the question to ask is are you running an old version of PHP?  Many sites are.  If you are, do you have plans to upgrade?

If you don’t plan to upgrade, the only question to ask is

WHY?

Information for this post came from ZDNet.

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