WordPress 3.1.3 and 3.2 Beta 2 Released

H-Online : The WordPress.org development team has released version 3.1.3 of its open source blogging and publishing platform; this is a maintenance and security update to WordPress 3.1 released in late February. According to the developers, the stable update features security hardening and taxonomy query hardening, and prevents the sniffing out of user names of non-authors by using canonical redirects.

WordPress 3.1.3 also introduces clickjacking protection in modern browsers on admin and login pages. In the event of an import not completing, the old import files will be cleaned up automatically. Other changes include media security fixes and improved file upload security.

At the same time, the developers also published a second beta of version 3.2 of WordPress. The latest beta adds support for Google's Chrome Frame in the admin area. The developers say that the admin area is now "less ugly" in Internet Explorer 7 (support for IE6 was dropped in the previous beta) and that the blue admin colour scheme is now ready for testing. jQuery 1.6.1 is now being bundled and users are advised to test any JavaScript that uses jQuery. Release candidate versions are planned for June, followed by a final version "by the end of the month".

As previously noted by the developers, version 3.2 of WordPress has new system requirements: PHP 5.24 and MySQL 5.0. As with all development releases, use on production sites is not advised. Users testing the release are asked to provide feedback and report any bugs that they find in the forums, mailing lists, over IRC on irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev or directly into the WordPress Trac.

More details about both the latest stable version and development versions can be found in the announcement news post; information specific to the stable version is in the 3.1.3 change log. WordPress 3.1.3 and 3.2 Beta 2 (direct download) are available to download from the project's web site. Alternatively, 3.1.x users can update automatically via the Dashboard > Updates menu in the site admin area. WordPress is licensed under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).