Ends support for PHP 7.4, which reaches End of Life

On Monday, November 28, 2022, PHP 7.4 reached End of Life. This means that it will no longer receive any support or updates.

Concurrently with the end of life for version 7.4, support for the entire PHP 7 branch used by about 60 percent of all websites written with this programming language ends.

The life cycle of a PHP version
PHP (short for Hypertext Preprocessor) is a popular programming language used for developing applications and websites. Each version boasts a three-year life cycle, which includes two phases:

1.active support for the first two years after version release. During this phase, updates are regularly made and security patches are released, usually on a monthly basis.
2.Security support covering the third year of life. During this period, PHP provides patches for critical vulnerabilities. Security fixes, therefore, are made only when needed.
Once this last phase is also over, the PHP version in question enters End of Life (EOL) and will not receive patches, bug fixes or other updates. The performance of sites using PHP versions that are no longer supported is lower and the surface of exposure to security vulnerabilities is widened.

What to do. The advice from the PHP developer community is to upgrade to a newer version, in this case to the:

• 8.0 supported until November 26, 2023
• 8.1 supported until November 25, 2024

The PHP 8 branch introduces new features and performance and security improvements, all in anticipation of the release of version 8.2 scheduled for December 8, 2022. However, these steps often require some planning to verify that the target version provides the right compatibility with the web project.

As a hosting provider, we try to ensure maximum performance and security by making regular client- and server-side updates. These also involve the PHP programming language, which is supported by our Linux hosting: keeping the version up-to-date includes performance and security benefits, as noted above.