Agreed, but if they are a decent and respectable web hosting company, they would update PHP regularly and most surely do so if asked.
章 33. 保持更新
PHP 和其它的大型系统一样，在持续的研究和改进中。每一个版本都会有或多或少的改进，以便提高安全性和修复已发现的问题等，这样做有利于提高整个系统的安生性和稳定性。
和其它系统级的脚本语言一样，最好的途径是经常更新，并时刻留意最新版本及其改变。
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User Contributed Notes
me at jonheather dot com
10-Oct-2005 08:52
10-Oct-2005 08:52
Chris Hester
08-Sep-2005 05:49
08-Sep-2005 05:49
The problem lies in everyday web hosting firms which often seem to employ old versions of PHP. The user is therefore stuck. They may also be at risk as security patches won't be present. Users might also like to use the latest features in PHP5, but the host may still be using PHP4.
Hosts might also be running with register_globals on. As reported elsewhere in the comments on this site, when some hosts turned it off, they got several emails about broken scripts. So the hosts simply turned register_globals back on.
The only solutions, besides pestering the web host to upgrade, are to change to a different, more modern host, or consider renting a virtual server where you can set up PHP yourself. Of course this is likely to be more expensive and so not suitable for the average person. It just seems a shame to be stuck using older versions of PHP which are less secure than the latest one.