Last night, Joomla 1.6.6 was released. You may be a bit confused by this because of some previous discussions about migration paths to Joomla 1.7.
If you are currently running Joomla 1.6, you are strongly encouraged to move to Joomla 1.7. Please see our recent article describing the migration process.
In order to move to Joomla 1.7, you must be running Joomla 1.6.5 or higher. So where does Joomla 1.6.6 fit into this picture?
Remember that Joomla 1.6 will be supported through August 19, when it will reach the end of life. Joomla 1.6 has a security flaw in it at the moment. In order to fix that flaw, a patch is required. Since Joomla 1.6 is still supported, a patch had to be issued for it, which is how Joomla 1.6.6 came to be. This same flaw is fixed in Joomla 1.7 as well.
So which is better: Joomla 1.7 or Joomla 1.6.6? Here’s how to decide:
- If you are running Joomla 1.6.x, move to Joomla 1.7. This should be just about everyone running Joomla 1.6. By moving to Joomla 1.7, you are maintaining forwards compatibility with Joomla. This is likely 99.9% of you out there, so if you’re in doubt, move to Joomla 1.7.
- If, for some odd and very remote reason, you cannot move your Joomla 1.6 site to Joomla 1.7, then you should install Joomla 1.6.6. HOWEVER, this does not follow Joomla’s “one click” installation process. You must install this patch manually. Refer to the press release in regards to Joomla 1.6.6 for installation instructions.
Once you have installed Joomla 1.6.6, you can still move to Joomla 1.7. However, the only reason to stay with 1.6 is if you have an extension that absolutely can’t run in 1.7 today. There aren’t many of those now, and in a few weeks, there will be even fewer.
Your best path? Move to 1.7.