Updates. Updates Everywhere.
The world around us today has us connected to technology at all times. Even if we aren’t on our phone, computer, or other marvel. These products didn’t exist a decade or two ago, but are now insisting to be used at our disposal. These devices have one thing in common, they use some type of programming in at least one way or another. Programming languages are always evolving. Whether it is a new feature or a security fix, something is always ready to be updated. This being said, a book could be written talking about each piece and the various updates/upgrades for specific pieces of tech. The nerve wracking part about that is by the time the book would published, it will be out-of-date. Without going deep into a rabbit hole, today we are going to talk about browsers and websites.
When you talk about browsers, everyone has an opinion. “Internet Explorer is terrible.” “Chrome is better than Firefox.” “Opera? The music?” “The thing that gets me to Google.” To be honest, it is your choice. Some browsers perform better than others, whether it is processing, standards handling, security, enhancements, or even usability. If you want to see how your browser stacks up, you can visit www.html5test.com. This tool runs tests to see how many HTML5 elements and features your browser can handle.
“What is HTML?” you may ask. It is hypertext markup language, need more? It is the language that the basic front end of a site is built with. HTML5 is the current standard, and it is able to do some pretty nifty things.
You can enjoy these new effects by updating your browser to a current version. This will also help protect you from security threats, especially if you choose to do online banking or shopping. Just so you know, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 11 is the only supported version of Internet Explorer. So the few of you still holding out, upgrade, or use a different browser. Please.
What about websites and the other technologies that are hacked? A browser can’t fully protect us from a compromised website. While the security is there to help reduce phishing and malware loading, a website needs updated too.
As you may have realized, you are reading this on a website. Gold stars all around to those who got that. If you are reading this on a printed sheet, I am not sure how this article got there, but thanks for reading. At Web Talent Marketing, we use the WordPress platform. It is really popular in the development world for its ease of use and it is relatively quick to get up and running. WordPress is built with PHP, ‘PHP: hypertext preprocessor’ (trivia note: it is a reverse acronym). Basically, PHP allows for servers to handle various tasks and connect with the database.
As you could have guessed, WordPress has updates. Updating your website, if you have one, is very important. Imagine your business’s website gets hacked. You could lose a lot like; revenue, customers, credibility, and/or access to your own site. These can be worst case scenarios, but they can happen. Think of your website as an employee that greets people, informs them, and offers a connection 24/7/365. That is an employee you want to keep looking sharp. Keep the ‘all-time’ employee secure and filled with up-to-date information.
WordPress isn’t the only thing that needs updated, its plugins and themes also need updates. It is important to pick supported and respected plugins and themes to install on your site. A compromised plugin or theme is a silent invitation to have access to your site. Supported and respected plugins still have vulnerabilities, but they typically fix them in a very timely manner. Occasionally, an exploit won’t be known for a long time. For example, on May 27, 2016 Jetpack 4.0.3 was released to fix an exploit that existed since version 2.0, which was released in 11/2012. The fix was released in a security patch. The developers responded quickly to the report of an exploit and got everything patched quickly. Another example is a major SEO plugin. On May 3, 2016 an exploit was detected and reported in Yoast SEO. Yoast rolled out a fix on May 6th 2016. They, like most of the respectable plugin/theme developers will, made a statement and also reflect changes in a change log associated with their product. WordPress also has its exploits, but are normally patched as fast as possible.
The information is endless for these two topics and discussions could go on for hours, but that isn’t what the knee-jerk reaction is when you hear about these things. There are better ways of spending your time, like watching the various husky defiance videos, or any of the billion cat videos that are out there. Even during those videos, updates occur constantly. There will always be updates. We, at Web Talent Marketing, want to make sure that you are having a safe, fun, fully interactive experience on the web. Also, we are always willing to help with the websites portions too. There are a lot of cool new features hitting the web, don’t miss out on them by not updating.