It’s a good day for the Joomla Project, as today we proudly announce the release of Joomla 3.9 – ‘The Privacy Tool Suite’ - marking the tenth minor release in the 3.x series.

We hope you’re sitting comfortably, because this new release packs in more than 250 improvements for the Joomla CMS – central to which is a full privacy tool suite, which will make site compliance faster and simpler (not to mention the lives of developers a whole lot easier)!
With so much ground to cover, we’d better get to it. So …

What’s new in Joomla 3.9?

Here are just some of the new features …

The Privacy Tool Suite by Joomla

• User Consents - Make light work of data privacy requirements
  Need users to consent to your privacy policy and/or terms and conditions? With Joomla 3.9, it’s all handled automatically. Simply and easily set up your core forms to request consent before collecting any personal data.
  You can also set up a time-based privacy consent expiration. The system will let you know if and when you need to contact your users to renew consent.
  Track user consents, manage site policy changes and much more besides, all with a glance at your dashboard.
  
  
• User information requests? Easy-peasy
  Track and manage information access or removal requests from your users, seamlessly. Once a request is made, just log in, export their data and/or remove them.
  User data removal requests are all handled automatically, with all personal data anonymized without you needing to lift a finger.
  Never forget a request again. Just set Joomla 3.9 to remind you.
  
  
• Extension Capabilities - Put your users in the picture when it comes to privacy...
  Extension developer – give your potential users a helping hand, by making it clear what data your extension collects. When you want to report functionality in your extensions that may need privacy consideration, simply use the new Plugin Event (onPrivacyCollectAdminCapabilities).
  With this simple action, your users gain a clear understanding of your extension, and whether they’ll need to amend their own documentation, such as their privacy policy or terms of service.
  
  
• User Actions Log - Know who’s done what, and when
  Want to know what administrative actions have been performed on your site? Thanks to Joomla 3.9, Super Users can easily see which user did what, and when. And it also works with supported extensions! Review the action log, export it and purge the entries. You’ll never miss a trick, thanks to the latest actions module that can be added to your control panel.
  Need more? Then enable the new log rotation plugin – this will allow you to rotate and remove your log files.

Joomla 3.9 is about more than Privacy

• Content management made fast and easy – little features, that make a big difference
  • Add notes to your articles in the backend, and filter them #19134
  • A new search feature in the backend: search for a specific article content #20083
  • Load a module by ID into your article #19362
• More flexibility for custom fields with two new options
  • A repeatable custom field is now available #20243
  • Create alternative layouts to fit your needs #18571
• Most recent frontend changes
  • Display the intro or full image in your newsflash module #20169
  • Show only the articles from a specific author in your latest articles module (#20687), and more options!
• New features for multilingual sites
  • A new toolbar button to edit associations #21022
  • Propagate existing associations #21321
  • Display your tags per language #19509
• Use Google Invisible reCAPTCHA on your websites #18146
• Argon2id Password is now supported #20855

Visit the Joomla 3.9 site to learn more about this release and browse our Joomla! 3.9 documentation to discover how to use the new features.

You’re ready for Joomla 3.9 – But is your website?

Updating your website to Joomla 3.9 takes just a single click (like each of the past 3.x versions).
But before upgrading, make sure you update all third-party extensions, followed by fully backing-up (and then testing your backup).
While you’re at it, this is a great time for a little hosting housekeeping – why not connect with your hosting company to check your PHP and database versions? We recommend upgrading to PHP 7.1.x to get the most out of the latest PHP improvements. Further system requirements and suggestions can be found over on the technical requirements page.

Download

Joomla! Volunteers – We Commend You!

Thanks for all of your code over the years. Including all feature work, there are now over 700 commits to our code base since the 3.8.13 release (and counting)! A big thank you goes out to everyone that contributed to Joomla 3.9 and made it possible.

A super special thank you goes to Michael Babker, Tuan Pham Ngoc, Nicola Galgano, Brian Teeman and Hannes Papenberg. These rather exceptional people all did amazing work on making the Privacy Tool Suite a reality.

A full list of the fabulous developers behind Joomla 3.9 can be found right here – on our Thank You page.

Last but certainly not least, we also want to give a massive Thank You to the 3.9 Marketing and Translation teams! Merci beaucoup, Vielen Dank and muchas gracias!

Spread the Joomla! Love

What has Joomla done for you? Has it helped you work better, faster, smarter? Has it saved you some big bucks or handed you more freedom out in the big online world? Tell everyone about it – and help them to do exactly what you’re done, with the help of Joomla!

Share our hot-off-the-press news!

Take a trip to the Joomla 3.9 Landing Page – which is already available in 25 languages (thanks, volunteer translators!). Here you’ll discover a full overview of the spanking-new features.
Enjoy and share the Joomla 3.9 official video, also available in many languages at https://joom.la/39videos

Need images or banners for your blog posts, website or for sharing on social? Download whatever you need from our packed-to-the-rafters Joomla 3.9 Imagery page. And if you want to translate them, you can find the source files here.
We’d love for you to spread the Joomla love by telling the world about our work.

Are you a journalist, blogger or evangelist?

Our Joomla Marketing Team are on call for interviews and other content. Email the team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Make the next Joomla! release even better

Joomla 3.10 and 4.0 are coming along nicely. Got a bright idea about how we can make Joomla even better? We’re calling all devs who could make a direct difference to the upcoming releases.

Find out more about these releases over on GitHub:

• Joomla 3.10 milestone: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/milestone/34
• Joomla 4.0 milestone: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/milestone/5

Download these upcoming releases from the nightly build page (for testing purposes only - do not use on production sites).

Want an even easier option?
Get yourself over to launch.joomla.org - where you can test Joomla 4.0 in just one click - no testing environment needed, nothing to install or set up (at all).

Join the Joomla! force

From eagle-eyed testers to talented translators, Joomla grows and evolves only because of our valiant team of volunteers.
Here’s how you could help...

• Become a tester - No special skills needed – but you will need to be able to install test releases and follow reporting instructions
• Help us translate - Speak English and another language? Help us talk to the world!
• Document new features - Consider yourself a natural teacher? These roles are for those who can write tutorials and technical documentation
• Joomla 3.9 Help Screens - Any user can help updating and/or translating the Help Screens – these are all accessible from the Joomla backend
• Other areas -  There are plenty of other volunteer spots - find one that fits with your skills and interests

There’s a lot going on at the Joomla Project. Keep up with us by subscribing to the Joomla Newsletter - and if you’re a dev, remember to sign up for our Developer Newsletter too.