Hello everyone,
friend of mine asked me to take care of his WordPress website (keep plugins, Theme, WordPress and PHP updated). Everything except PHP (right now version 7.3-yeah, kinda old) is done. With the hosting provider where he has his website on, it is not possible to simply change the PHP version by switching it in the Client section, it is necessary to write to support, and they supposedly have to “switch hosting between webservers, which support x.x version of PHP”. This entire operation is also paid, so he doesn’t really want to go this way, and he also doesn’t want to change his hosting provider either. His website is mainly presentation page, so it is not e-shop, there is no login/registration. So my question: is it necessary to update PHP to this kind of website? I know it is highly recommended (speed improvement and much more secure) to keep PHP updated, but what kind of risks precisely he will be possibly facing? Attacks that will keep his web unreachable for x minutes? Or that he could lose his database records? I hope this isn’t too stupid question. If so, I am sorry.
Thank you in advance!
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Hey there i’am Robin from WPSeiten,
regarding PHP as you said staying up to date is not only important for the compatibility between Plugins and Themes but also the Security is a big problem when going with older versions.
7.3 is kinda old but not the worst of the World, you should have a Plan B because some Plugins have set there minimum Version of php to 8.0.
Staying on it should be no problem for now but thinking about a Hosting Provider change would be the right way as a Plan B.
I would defenitly recommend Cloudflares WP Super Cache Plugin for you since they make a fully HTML Copy of your Site which makes it nearly impossible to attack your Website.
I hope i could help,
Best regards!