Joomla! 2.5.17 under the Christmas tree

Where are we? The research conducted by JoomlaHost.it and published on our blog dates back to last August 2013 in which Joomla!® 2.5.x had surpassed version 1.5.26 by 7 percentage points, followed closely by versions 1.0, 1.6, 1.7 and 3.1 with very low percentages

Joomla! Usage Statistics August 2013 The latest survey carried out by JoomlaHost.it is recent and has highlighted encouraging results which we will analyze below.

We took around 30 thousand sites as a sample and detected important variations compared to the last published statistics:

Joomla version usage data - December 2013

From the graph it can be seen that the Joomla!® 2.5.x version is gaining more and more ground compared to previous versions and more precisely the percentages are August 2013 50% – December 2013 53.15%, exceeding the 1.5.x version by more than 13%. This is a positive fact as official support for version 1.5.26 ended last April 2012 and it is therefore no longer recommended to install this version.

We are very satisfied with the results of this latest 2013 research as the dated version 1.0 has been definitively abandoned by our users in favor of version 2.5.x and the percentage of versions 1.6 and 1.7 is gradually decreasing to below 2%.

Before concluding we would like to provide you with some clarifications on the versions analyzed.

Official support for version 1.5.26 ended over a year ago (April 2012), it is therefore advisable for all users of the well-known version to design and plan the migration to the latest version (to date) 2.5.17 to finally arrive at the new stable release 3.5 next March 2014.

We also remind you to update your 2.5.x version to the most recent 2.5.17 (to date) as it contains a serious security flaw that allows unauthorized uploading of malicious files within the web space.

As for the newly created 3.2.x, it represents the development branch of Joomla!® and must not be used for production sites as it is a version with short-term support (STS "Short Term Support"). The version with long-term support (LTS "Long Term Support") will be the future 3.5 scheduled for March 2014.

Versions 1.6 and 1.7 contain known security flaws, their use is strongly discouraged and it is essential to urgently update to version 2.5.17.

Exploiting the vulnerabilities of an outdated Joomla!® site is relatively simple, paradoxically instructions are easily found online.

As last August, we confirm that JoomlaHost intends to have its users maintain version 1.5.26j by not carrying out any forced migration operations, allowing planning for subsequent versions with complete peace of mind.

In wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy update in 2014, at the next search, estimated in about 3 months, we hope to see a percentage increasingly closer to zero for versions 1.6 and 1.7 and a significant decrease in version 1.5.x in favor of the more recent 2.5.x