After a long wait, Magento has finally release latest magento community version 1.8.0.0 with lots of improvement and enhancement. Latest release concentrate on security enhancement and performance improvement. Magento Inc. has taken a year and two month to launch another stable version after 1.7.0.2 and almost 5 month from their alpha1 release.
Here are some major update you would like to know.
Security Enhancements
- Magento has now fixed the session related vulnerability in the new user registration process so now hackers cannot change the registration flow during user’s signup. They have also removed loopholes exist in billing information
- Fixed security issues so sensitive information cannot leaked when attackers knows oAuth credentials.
- Major fix is, now you no longer store your admin control panel username and password in browsers
- At database level, they have changed the cryptographic methods to save password in database.
Performance Improvement
- In new release, Magento has limit the large database lookup
- Improve the checkout process by eliminating unnecessary RSS cache
- You can now load large number of tax code
Tax Calculation Fix
We can say that whole magento 1.8.0.0 enhancement is all about tax calculation fix. Major changes are done in this section to improve site owner’s credibility towards their customer. They have fixed the potential issue around tax calculation and its display on website. They have given brief description at their article Recommended Tax Configurations and Best Practices
Other Important Fixes
- Fixed free shipping option for Table rate shipping method.
- Unit price and tiered price issues fixed for bundled products.
- You can now use special characters in a product URL key.
- Welcome messages display accurate when customer edit his profile information.
- Update the recently viewed product block.
- Searching for a customer’s orders and returns works properly.
- Free shipping is no longer available to a customer during checkout if the option was disabled by an administrator
- You can now specify weight units in kilograms (kg) using the FedEx shipping method.
- Administrators can view the contents of a customer’s shopping cart.
- Fixed many bugs and improve functionality of promotional rules
- Orders placed by an administrator display in a customer’s last order list.
- Fixed product import issue of quaintly and also enhanced importing products with Append Complex Data
- Security issues with Google Checkout and Authorized.net have been resolved.
- Make PayPal IPN compatible with new guideline by PayPal
- Now cart content will not lost when canceling order by PayPal
- Enhanced functionality of various PayPal payment method
- MySQL database deadlock issues were resolved.
- You can now save a category with the option Available Product Listing Sort By: Best value or Price enabled.
You can read more regarding changelog at www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/ce-18-later-release-notes
Should I upgrade my magento store to 1.8.0.0?
Defiantly we love to be first to use latest and more stable version of magento and think to upgrade our store as soon as possible, But we suggest to wait for few days (atleast till 20th Oct). The reason is now lots of community user start exploring magento 1.8 version and report any bugs to Magento Inc. Magento Inc. will fix serious bug which affect the security and user’s privacy on top priority and release new version like 1.8.0.1 and so on. So let’s wait to see what comes next.
Anything special I need to take care while magento upgrading?
Yes. Backup… Backup… & Backup…
- Before you upgrade your magento, it’s important that you do not ruin your existing magento store. Backup of all files and database is mandatory before upgrading your store.
- We suggest not to work on production url but clone your existing magento store on another subdomain/host and perform upgrade.
- If you have used any 3rd party or community extension, make sure you got its latest stable version compatible with 1.8.0.0
- If you are using USPS shipping method, you need to print all labels before upgrading. In new release, they have change the name of priority and express shipping method. You also have to recreate shopping cart rules that uses USPS shipping method in conditions or criteria.
- Or contact our magento developer team to take care of all this hassles.