14 DAY TRIAL // The Joomla project has released version 3.5.0 of their open-source PHP-based CMS, the last version in the 3.x branch, but one of crucial importance, adding many much-needed features, and of course, the obligatory bug fixes.
First and foremost, Joomla 3.5 is the first Joomla version to fully support PHP 7, the latest major version of the PHP engine.
Supporting PHP 7 has done wonders for Joomla, the team saying that Joomla 3.5 on PHP 7 is twice as fast, and also consumes half the memory used by previous versions.
Administrators will receive an email on every new Joomla release
The second major feature added to Joomla in version 3.5 is of extreme interest to webmasters, especially those obsessed with security updates.
Starting with 3.5, Joomla will now include an email notification system that automatically checks the Joomla servers for a new version, and then sends an email to the administrator.
While Joomla included an update manager for many versions, it didn't have the "emailing" option included, so many updates, and especially security fixes, went unpatched because very few admins knew of them.
The addition of this option may have something to do with the recent security issues that plagued Joomla, especially at the end of 2015.
New statistics module, drag-and-drop images
But there are other features in Joomla 3.5 that you need to know about. One of them is the new statistics built-in module that collects data about each site, anonymizes it, and then sends it to Joomla project's servers.
The Joomla team says it will use this data to gather more accurate information on how its users deploy the CMS, on what type of servers, with what type of database, and all the stuff that helps Joomla devs adapt and optimize their CMS to the environments most people use it in. All the gathered data will be publicly available, and anyone can check it at this link.
Additionally, Joomla 3.5 now supports drag-and-drop image embedding, article counts, and a special feature that allows a user to download his own site's system & environment information, useful when debugging.
Joomla 3.5 is available via the project's GitHub page, but you'll also find a mirrored download via Softpedia's good ol' Webscripts section.