Aug. 23, 2017—After over 13 million downloads of WordPress 4.8, the web platform announced the immediate availability of WordPress 4.8.1, a maintenance release.
This release contains 29 maintenance fixes and enhancements, chief among them are fixes to the rich Text widget and the introduction of the Custom HTML widget. For a full list of changes, consult the release notes, the tickets closed and the list of changes.
The most important updates for small business owners using WordPress to consider are the improved media widgets for images, audio, video and rich text, improved links and a news section. Tips for utilizing all of those enhancements are available on Small Business Trends.
If your site supports automatic background updates, you will likely have received both the 4.8 update and the 4.8.1 maintenance release automatically — without doing a thing. Otherwise, you can download WordPress 4.8.1 here, or go to your dashboard and click Update Now. Additional release notes can be found here.
When you download the latest version, make sure you also go over the WP Engine’s upgrade policy for your site.
