PrestaShop 8.0 comes out in beta, allowing us to examine its features. The first thing you can notice is the numbering we pass from 1.7.8.X to 8.0. Being a beta version it is not suitable for ecommerce in production, but it introduces many new features including finally support for PHP 8.0 and the Symfony update to version 4.4. Here for the official release .

Remember this is a pre-release BETA version, and it is highly possible that serious problems will occur. So don't use it for your online store.

Finally WebP image support

WebP support in PrestaShop 8.0

One of the most popular news is that PrestaShop will finally natively support the WebP format, this format was released by Google in 2010, that is 12 years ago. For those like us at Tecnoacquisti.com who focus heavily on performance and compliance with Web Vitals metrics was a very important novelty. Since Safari in version 14 finally included support for this image format, there are no more excuses not to use it on our ecommerce stores. In previous versions of PrestaShop to be able to use this format it is necessary to use third-party modules that often have problems we use on our Nginx server in reverse proxy. Or we can use a CDN like bunny.net , with an unjustified increase in costs if we are not interested in the global market to Canada, USA or Asia.

Publish images in newer formats

Publish images in newer formats

Using the WebP format allows us, especially in the mobile environment, to reduce the size of the download and therefore the loading times. You will also receive a better score in PageSpeed Insights and Lighhouse ( find out how to measure your site's performance ). So to get rid of that " Publish images in newer formats " warning.

Independence and Open Source Project

PrestaShop 8.0 is the first independent version from the company PrestaShop SA therefore it does not include commercial products and services. So it no longer includes PrestaShop Addons , which is now a standalone module that can be installed if you are interested in having a link to the Marketplace. The native modules ( built-in modules ) are now distributed by a dedicated infrastructure and therefore can be installed and updated directly from the Module Manager.

Fixed 130 bugs and changes in version 8.0.

Version 8.0 fixes more than 130 bugs from previous versions, including:

Other interesting news is the presence of new security settings, which allows us to indicate the minimum password requirements for customers and employees and now for both it is possible to see the open sessions and disconnect them remotely if necessary.

Several new modules have also been included and during installation, you can now decide which plug-ins to install and which not.

Download PrestaShop 8.0 beta

You can download PrestaShop 8.0 from here:

Author: Loris Modena

SENIOR DEVELOPER

Per Ind Loris Modena , owner of Arte e Informatica , he began working in the IT sector in 1989 as a system engineer in charge of the maintenance and installation of IT systems. He started programming for the web in 1997 dealing with CGI programming in PERL and then moving on to programming in PHP and JavaScript. In this period he approaches the Open source world and the management of Linux servers.

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