Covid-19 and NZ’s Level 4 Lockdown: an update from WP NET
-As New Zealand goes to “level 4” lockdown this evening, we wanted to take the time now, to contact our customers (both existing and prospective) and let you know that everyone at WP NET will be continuing to work throughout these challenging times — hosting and protecting your WordPress websites. … continues
And, We’re Back in the Room
-Well, this is embarrassing. I just looked at the date of our last blog post and it’s almost 12 months ago! Oh dear.
While we have been very slack on updating our blog, rest assured we have been as busy as ever with our growing customer base and on-going maintenance, upgrades and planning.
With Gutenberg now released and becoming quite a mature editor, WordPress is looking as strong as ever as we head into 2020.
So, here’s a summary of what’s been going on and what’s coming up. … continues
New Pricing for Managed WordPress Plans
-Today we are announcing our new Managed WordPress (shared-server) hosting plans, along with a new pricing model. … continues
New Managed Server Products Available Now
-Announcing our all-new Managed Servers — they’re faster … and cheaper!
Blazing-fast, Single-tenant WordPress Servers — right here in NZ
At WP NET, our focus has always been on the New Zealand market — we aim to provide the best possible WordPress hosting services for NZ businesses with predominantly NZ-based users.
Unlike many of the other Managed WordPress hosting companies operating in NZ, all WP NET’s servers are located in New Zealand, ensuring that your customers get the fastest possible response time.
While hosting resources and bandwidth is still significantly cheaper outside NZ, it can mean that your website performance suffers at busy times, when international data traffic usage is high. Hosting in New Zealand means that your customers get low-response times and consistent performance. … continues
New My WP NET Design
-Just in time for Christmas, we’ve unveiled an all-new design for our customer portal website, My WP NET.
The new design more closely fits with our main public website and WP NET brand, and we’ve made changes to simplify service management and checkout. … continues
PHP 5 and 7.0 Reach End-of-Life
-PHP 5 and 7.0 will soon reach end-of-life. This means that these versions will no longer receive updates of any kind, including fixes for security issues. To ensure the on-going compatibility and security of your WordPress sites, you will need to upgrade to PHP 7.2. … continues
New Editor Coming in WordPress 5.0
-WordPress version 5.0 is due out in November. With this update comes one of the biggest changes to the WordPress core for many years — a brand new editor — named, Gutenberg.
Update: the release of WordPress 5.0 has been postponed to
Tuesday, November 27th. The release of WordPress 5.0 has been delayed further. At time of writing, no new date has been set. It will likely not be released until early 2019.
The Gutenberg editor, showing the “blocks” interface.
Price Drop on AutoSSL plans!
-Starting today, all WP NET Managed WordPress hosting plans include support for
FreeSSLAutoSSL.Update 19 August: We’ve decided to rename our FreeSSL feature to AutoSSL!
All customers on MWP2 servers are now able to install Let’s Encrypt certificates and convert their site to use the
https://prefix.This move is largely in response to recent changes in many of the major web browsers and how they display non-HTTPS websites. You may have heard recently that the Google Chrome browser will now display “insecure” in the address bar when viewing any site using HTTP. These changes are further driving the move towards SSL / TLS encryption for all websites.
Effective today, the Starter + SSL hosting plan is retired and all customers on that plan have been crossgraded to Starter 1GB. All customers who were previously on the Starter + SSL plan will have their next account reduced to the $29 per month ($319 per year) price.
Converting your site to HTTPS
Converting your site is pretty straightforward, just login to the Plesk Panel, go to the Security Advisor and follow the steps to install a Let’s Encrypt certificate and convert your site to use the
https://prefix.If you need any assistance or need more information, please see Using WordPress with SSL in our Knowledgebase or contact WP NET Support and we’ll be happy to help.
Announcing the Revisium AntiVirus Scanner
-We are thrilled to announce that the excellent Revisium Antivirus Scanner is now available to all customers on MWP2 servers.
Revisium AntiVirus Features
Revisium Antivirus is an intelligent malware detection tool with one-click automatic malware cleanup and blacklist status checking. Scans run automatically each night, and customers can review scan results and run additional scans on-demand directly in the Plesk Panel.
PHP 7.2 Now Available
-We are pleased to announce that the latest, greatest — and fastest ever — version of PHP: 7.2 is now available to all WP NET customers.
Customers on MWP2.0 shared-server plans and those on Managed Cloud Servers can now select PHP 7.2 for use.
Please note that WP NET will not automatically switch customers over to the new PHP version. Customers who want to use PHP 7.2 will need to login to the Plesk Panel (or Cloud Server Control Panel) and change the runtime for the sites they want to upgrade, this is very easy and quick to do and if you experience any issues you can immediately switch back to whatever runtime you were previously using.
Some WordPress themes and plugins may still not be fully compatible with PHP 7.2. If you do decide to upgrade to PHP 7.2, you will need to to carefully test your sites to ensure everything is working OK. If not, it’s a simple process to switch back to 7.1, 7.0 or 5.6. If you need any assistance, just contact WP NET Support and we’ll be happy to help.
Recently, the recommended PHP version for use with WordPress was changed to version 7.2.
