In previous versions of Joomla (1.0 and 1.5) applying the latest upgrades for security fixes or new features required a reasonable level of technical know how, as the appropriate update file e.g. upgrade from Joomla 1.5.18 to 1.5.25 had to be located, downloaded to your server via FTP, unzipped and then the patch applied, writing over the live files on the website. Finally the file permissions needed to be checked and where necessary updated.

Not surprisingly, many non-technical users did not feel comfortable with this procedure and lacking IT support staff many Joomla sites were not kept up to date, indeed many site owners would not even have been aware that the latest versions were required. This led to security problems and bugs causing unreliability of many Joomla sites.

Updating was the number one feature request for Joomla 2.5 and this has been included in the new version.

Upgrading Joomla to the latest version of the software, both for the core and for extensions is now very straightforward and can be done directly from the Administrator Control Panel.