From Newsgroup: comp.misc

You’ve heard the oft-repeated statistic that PHP powers some 70% of
the world’s websites. But does it really?

Reading this (very old) article <https://eev.ee/blog/2012/07/28/quick-doesnt-mean-dirty/>, I came
across this:

Other choice TechCrunch quotes:

And yet PHP is allegedly used by more than three-quarters of
all web sites.

Alleged, indeed. This links to w3techs, which seems to indicate
that it uses URLs and HTTP headers to detect what language a site
is written in. What popular language plugin for Apache reports
itself in the Server header, whether it’s being used for the
current page or not? mod_php. What doesn’t? Everything else!

(Addendum: I am told w3techs is even less reliable than appears at
first glance. They omit the nearly 20% of sites they can’t guess
at all.)

Basically, PHP is the one that tends to advertise itself to the world,
whereas the rest don’t bother. PHP also betrays itself because its
antiquated file-per-page structure means all the URLs end with “.php”
(yes, there are ways to hide this, but do you think your typical PHP
programmer could figure that out?).

In short, it’s a wonder that there are 30% of websites that want to
advertise what they use, that do bother to point out that they’re
*not* running PHP.

Yes, the article writer is a Python fan. And so am I. What’s wrong
with that? ;)
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 23 Oct 2026 06:20:41 +0000, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

Basically, PHP is the one that tends to advertise itself to the world, whereas the rest don’t bother. PHP also betrays itself because its antiquated file-per-page structure means all the URLs end with “.php” (yes, there are ways to hide this, but do you think your typical PHP programmer could figure that out?).

Don't need to be a programmer/coder/whatever

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

done
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:43:48 +1000, noel wrote:

On Fri, 23 Oct 2026 06:20:41 +0000, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

Basically, PHP is the one that tends to advertise itself to the world,
whereas the rest don’t bother. PHP also betrays itself because its
antiquated file-per-page structure means all the URLs end with “.php”
(yes, there are ways to hide this, but do you think your typical PHP
programmer could figure that out?).

Don't need to be a programmer/coder/whatever

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

done

ooops, should have said, that's in httpd.conf
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In comp.misc, Lawrence DOliveiro <[email protected]d> wrote:

You've heard the oft-repeated statistic that PHP powers some 70% of
the world's websites. But does it really?

I've heard Wordpress powers > 20% of websites and 100% of Wordpress is
PHP. There are other web frameworks using PHP, too.

view-source:https://www.whitehouse.gov/

Using Wordpress, look for the /wp-content/ links.

Wikipedia, and wikis using that software (there are a lot run by the
Wikimedia org, and many independent ones) are using PHP.

A bunch of forum software uses PHP.

My personal website doesn't use PHP, but the server lies and sends out a
an X-Powered-By: PHP header to fuck with script kiddies.

I got paid a lot of money for a decade to manage a PHP website that used
a custom built framework. (That site is using Wordpress now, and I am
not involved.)

Elijah
------
loves fucking with script kiddies
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:45:10 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:

Using Wordpress, look for the /wp-content/ links.

Interesting how often this is still a giveaway, even though links on
the site might not have “.php” in them.

My personal website doesn't use PHP, but the server lies and sends out a
an X-Powered-By: PHP header to fuck with script kiddies.

That kind of thing is fun. ;)

Connect to my email server, and the greeting says

220 «my-domain-name» ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8

That probably causes some security experts to twitch. ;)
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <[email protected]d> wrote:

Connect to my email server, and the greeting says

220 «my-domain-name» ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8

That probably causes some security experts to twitch. ;)

For many years I ran a sendmail server which identified itself as
Laxative 9.0+tahoe. I don't know if it confused hackers, but it certainly confused and annoyed our security guys.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sat, 24 Oct 2026 15:42:35 -0400, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <[email protected]d> wrote:

Connect to my email server, and the greeting says

220 «my-domain-name» ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.8/8.8.8

That probably causes some security experts to twitch. ;)

For many years I ran a sendmail server which identified itself as
Laxative 9.0+tahoe. I don't know if it confused hackers, but it
certainly confused and annoyed our security guys.

I heard so much cursing about sendmal at work that I never considered it
for use at home. It's been postfix for almost as long as I remember (and before that, an excellent third party OS/2 email server).
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 23 Oct 2026 06:20:41 -0000 (UTC), <[email protected]d> wrote:

You’ve heard the oft-repeated statistic that PHP powers some 70% of
the world’s websites. But does it really?

Reading this (very old) article ><https://eev.ee/blog/2012/07/28/quick-doesnt-mean-dirty/>, I came
across this:

Other choice TechCrunch quotes:

And yet PHP is allegedly used by more than three-quarters of
all web sites.

Alleged, indeed. This links to w3techs, which seems to indicate
that it uses URLs and HTTP headers to detect what language a site
is written in. What popular language plugin for Apache reports
itself in the Server header, whether it’s being used for the
current page or not? mod_php. What doesn’t? Everything else!

(Addendum: I am told w3techs is even less reliable than appears at
first glance. They omit the nearly 20% of sites they can’t guess
at all.)

Basically, PHP is the one that tends to advertise itself to the world, >whereas the rest don’t bother. PHP also betrays itself because its >antiquated file-per-page structure means all the URLs end with “.php” >(yes, there are ways to hide this, but do you think your typical PHP >programmer could figure that out?).

In short, it’s a wonder that there are 30% of websites that want to >advertise what they use, that do bother to point out that they’re
*not* running PHP.

Yes, the article writer is a Python fan. And so am I. What’s wrong
with that? ;)

I assume it's less than it used to be. That said, I have a crap-ton of PHP in my professional environment and will continue to for a very long time to come.

Some of that is due to wordpress.

Some of that is due to a very mature PHP middleware library which some legacy apps sit on top of in additiona to our RESTFUL API. Of course,
almost all the front-ends are written in Angular these days, but it's sitting ontop of a massive php stack.


--
Sent from my Personal DECstation 5000/25
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2