Back in 2008 we were one of the first providers to introduce Magento optimized hosting. Today we are excited to announce to the public our brand new Magento 2.0 hosting platform with full PHP 7 support! Since Magento 2.0 was released at the end of last year we have been working hard to build a state of the art hosting environment for the next generation eCommerce platform. Because Magento 2.0 has a completely new set of system requirements, we have decided to introduce three new hosting plans which incorporates this new technology stack. At this time you will not be able to use Magento 2.0 on our existing Magento 1.x plans.

Magento 2.0 Hosting Plans

M2 Basic ($27/mo)
10 GB SSD storage
150 GB transfer/month
2 vCPU cores
2 GB RAM

M2 Pro ($97/mo)
25 GB SSD storage
250 GB transfer/mo
4 vCPU cores
4 GB RAM

M2 Pro+ ($197/mo)
50 GB SSD storage
500 GB transfer/mo
8 vCPU cores
8 GB RAM

The Pro and Pro+ packages also includes Redis and Memcached support.

Limited Free Trial

For a limited time we are offering free 30-day trials on the new Magento 2.0 hosting packages. For more information check out the new Magento 2.0 hosting page and sign up directly using this link to start your trial.

Magento 2.0 Demo Stores

We have set up the following demo stores to allow you to test the speed and functionality of Magento 2.0:

• http://m2demo-us.phdns.com (US)
• http://m2demo-uk.phdns.com (UK)

Speed Test

ProperHost has always strived to be the fastest Magento host on the web, and we wanted to stay true to this goal when we built our Magento 2.0 platform. Check out the WebPageTest.com test results by clicking on the picture below.

Official PHP 7 Support

Together with the launch of Magento 2.0 hosting, we are also adding PHP 7 support to all our servers. PHP 7 on average is 2-3x faster than PHP 5.6 and is fully supported by Magento 2.0. Check out these benchmark tests published by Zend to see how it compares.

We start by rolling out the upgrade on our Magento 2.0 servers first, and within the next 1-2 weeks PHP 7 will be available on all our shared hosting servers.

How to enable PHP 7

PHP 5.6 will still be the default version for quite some time in order to ensure backwards compatibility with Magento 1.x and other web applications. PHP 7 can be enable per directory by adding one line of code at the top of your .htaccess file:

This will force all .php scripts in that directory and all sub-directories to be handled by PHP 7.

As we are entering this year's festive season I want to take this opportunity to thank all our clients for their continuous support and cooperation in the past year, and reminisce over some of the highlights in 2015. 2015 was an exciting year for ProperHost where we continued to evolve and add new features to improve our services.

LiteMage Cache
LiteMage Cache, the world's fastest Magento full page cache, was added as a new feature to our Magento hosting platform. LiteMage significantly increases the speed of any Magento store, and if you have not yet read the LiteMage case study I recommend you to check it out.

EU (UK) Data Center added
Due to popular demand, we added a state-of-the-art data center facility in London to our available server locations to better serve users within the European region.

New client area and website
In May we finally released our long-awaited new website and revamped client area, which offered a fresh new look and improved navigation and page structure.

Among the less pleasant events, 2015 was also the year that Magento was faced with some serious security threats. The infamous Magento Shoplift Exploit spread like fire in the first months of the year, and unfortunately thousands of store owners had their sites compromised. As recent as in October, the GuruIncSite JavaScript malware was disclosed, again affecting a large group of users. If you have not already done so, please scan your Magento shop for known vulnerabilities and apply the necessary security patches.

Before we leave 2015 for good and welcome 2016, I especially want to turn your attention towards what might be the hottest topic at the moment - namely Magento 2.0. After several years in development and various rumors circulating, Magento 2.0 was officially released last month. Although it is still in early stages and not many merchants have converted yet, Magento 2.0 is arguably going to play an important role in the future of ecommerce. Just like ProperHost was one of the first hosts to introduce Magento optimized hosting back in 2008, we have worked hard behind the scenes to bring to you the first true Magento 2.0 optimized hosting. I am thrilled to announce that ProperHost's new range of Magento 2.0 compatible hosting packages will be launched in January 2016!

Finally, we have an early Christmas present for you... For the remainder of 2015 we offer 25% OFF FOR LIFE on all Magento hosting, cloud and dedicated server plans*! To get the discount use coupon RHGK5M66Q8 or place your order using this direct link. If you are considering adding a new server or hosting one more Magento project, now is a good time to receive a great saving.

* This offer applies to new orders only

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all your friends at ProperHost!

Customer Success Story

This is the first post in a series of customer success stories from clients that use the ProperHost hosting platform to empower their online businesses. First out is a performance case study of IzyShoes, an online fashion store built on Magento that specialize in women’s shoes, bags and accessories. In the case study we highlight the challenges they were facing, and how IzyShoes were able to significantly improve page loading speed and ultimately increase sales and customer satisfaction with the help of ProperHost.

Read the full story to learn how IzyShoes reduced Magento page load time by 93.5% in one simple step!

Magento just announced that the brand new version Magento 2.0 has been released and is now available for download. Magento 2.0 marks the next major release of the eCommerce software since version 1.0 was released back in 2008. Besides a complete rewrite of the core foundation, Magento 2.0 offers enhanced performance and scalability, new features to boost conversion rates, and business agility and productivity improvements.

Read the full announcement here: http://magento.com/blog/magento-news/new-era-commerce-innovation

We have already received multiple enquiries regarding whether Magento 2.0 can be installed on our servers. Magento 2.0 has a new set of system requirements, some of which may cause backwards compatibility issues with existing Magento 1.x installations. We can therefore not officially support Magento 2.0 yet on our shared servers. We are, however, exploring the possibilities of offering Magento 2.0 hosting in the near future.

Please also note that Magento 2.0 has a completely new architecture and structure, thus, it is not possible to upgrade from Magento 1.x to 2.0 without significant effort.

On October 27, 2015, Magento released the patch SUPEE-6788 that resolves several security-related issues, including remote code execution exploits and information leak vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities were identified through Magento's comprehensive security program. Due to the severity of these vulnerabilties all Magento store owners are urged to patch their site as soon as possible. Magento also released new versions of Magento Community Edition and Magento Enterprise Edition which includes patch SUPEE-6788.

How do I know if my store is vulnerable?

All versions prior to Magento CE 1.9.2.2 and EE 1.14.2.2 are vulnerable. You can scan your Magento site for security issues on magereport.com.

How to apply the patch

• Download SUPEE-6788 patch for the particular version of Magento you are using. Upload it to your store root directory (e.g. public_html).
• Log in to your account using SSH (contact us for access) and navigate to the Magento installation directory:
  cd <path_to_magento>
• Now apply the patch by typing the following command:
  sh patch-file-name.sh (replace with the exact name of the patch for your Magento version)
• You should see the following message if the patch was applied successfully:
  Patch was applied/reverted successfully.

What if the patch could not be applied?

Some users have reported that they get an error message similar to the following when trying to apply the patch.

This error occurs if the main .htaccess file has been modified from the stock Magento .htaccess. The patch just crashes unexpectedly with no further explanation - not a very graceful way to handle such a common situation.

The solution is to simply revert the .htaccess (and .htaccess.sample) to the stock versions from the installation package for your Magento version. You should then be able to apply the patch. Make sure to backup your customized .htaccess file first so you can restore it after the patch has been applied.

The particular changes that SUPEE-6788 makes to the .htaccess is included below. It is recommended that you add this to your customized .htaccess once the patch has been applied.