WordPress 6.5 released

The latest version of WordPress was released yesterday with v6.5 offering improvements to speed, accessibility and local loading of Google web fonts to improve GDPR compliance.

Google web fonts

WordPress can now load Google web fonts locally from your website hosting, making the fonts GDPR compliant. Loading fonts from Google’s servers shares personal information with the ad giant and has been flagged as not complying with GDPR. This local loading is great for website owners.

Effortlessly install, remove, and activate local and Google Fonts across your site for any Block theme.

Speed improvements

WordPress has always been a little slow to load out of the box, and this got worse with Gutenberg editor and all the junk that came with it. We turn all that off and add a lightweight page builder that makes more sense to clients than the Gutenberg editor. Caching plugins also help but it’s a constant battle getting WordPress to load quickly. Thankfully this release has focused on some performance improvements:

This release includes 110+ performance updates, resulting in an impressive increase in speed and efficiency across the Post Editor and Site Editor. Loading is over two times faster than in 6.4, with input processing speed up to five times faster than the previous release.

AVIF format image support has also been added, so those images straight off your iPhone should load into the WordPress media library now!

Accessibility

Not everyone is using a mouse to access the WordPress admin area, with some users choosing or needing to use a keyboard instead. WordPress 6.5 release notes have the following to say about improved accessibility:

This release includes more than 65 accessibility improvements across the platform, making it more accessible than ever. It contains an important fix that unblocks access to the admin submenus for screen reader users and others who navigate by keyboard. This release also adds fixes to color contrast in admin focus states, positioning of elements, and cursor focus, among many others, that help improve the WordPress experience for everyone.

Summary

WordPress 6.5 has new features like AVIF image support, local loading of Google web fonts, improved performance and accessibility improvements. We’ve tried it out on a few sites and plugin support is looking good already, with no serious issues to report so far. If you need help upgrading your WordPress website, contact us today for a chat.