What is PHP and Why do you need to update it?

14 September 2022 Laatste update: 14 September 2022 This is how

If you have anything to do with websites, or you are a client of Laméco, you have probably heard of the term "PHP". Yet for many people it remains little-to-nothing, while PHP is hearty fun and important! Want to know what PHP actually is and why it is important to keep it up-to-date? Then read on here.

What is PHP anyway?

PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a scripting language that handles data processing (receiving and sending) on the server side of a website. PHP is open source and is used by the majority of all Web sites, as much as 80%!

A lot of important parts of your website depend on PHP, for example:

The handling of forms
Sending and receiving cookies
Communicating with databases
Displaying dynamic components such as "products" or "blogs"
Logging into the CMS
Securing data

As you can see, it's woven into your entire system. So is PHP the only way to make all these things work? Of course there are other methods, but they are not as nice as PHP, if it is up to us.

What are the benefits of PHP?

About 80% of all websites are built with PHP. As are all of Laméco's websites. There must be a good reason for that! What are actually the advantages of PHP?

It works on any operating system, including that of your PC, tablet or phone
PHP has been around since 1994, so there is a lot of documentation available and it is highly developed
It is free to use and is open source
Because it works on (almost) all types of servers, it is easy to host
PHP can work with many different types of databases

So it is not for nothing that PHP is so widely used.

Why do you need to (keep) updating PHP?

Just like the software and all apps on your phone, PHP needs periodic updates. More and more new versions of PHP are becoming available and their development is accelerating. Below you will find the main reasons to update PHP listed:

Safety

Each new version of PHP is supported for 2 years. When your PHP version is no longer supported, it is also no longer protected against vulnerabilities. If a "leak" is found, then people with malicious intentions can have their way. Think of code injection, overflow, DoS, memory corruption, XSS, bypass, directory traversal and obtaining information.

So a PHP version that is no longer supported is something you definitely don't want on your website. In supported versions, such a "leak" is immediately closed.

Performance & new features

With new PHP versions, the performance of websites also improves greatly. For example, PHP 7.3 could already perform almost 3x more transactions (requests) per second than PHP 5.6. This made websites not only faster but also more stable. These developments in performance will only continue to grow.

In addition to performance in the form of speed and stability, new versions also come with new techniques that a developer can use. These new techniques make code work more efficiently.

Support

Often in a Web site, you use 3rd party plugins or links to other systems. This software will also undergo updates. Those updates are often still released for older PHP versions, but usually only a few versions back. If your PHP version is too outdated, it is possible that slow functionality on your website will break down. With very old versions (PHP 5.0 for example) it may even be that it is too old to update and your system is "total loss".

So it is still very important to keep the PHP version up-to-date!

Would you like to know more about this? Feel free to call us or contact us using the form below.

040-293 00 35

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