Hey, Magento people, the long-awaited 2.4 release is here! It went live on July 28, 2020, and brought a whole bunch of new features, improvements, and bug fixes. The new version has something for both Magento developers and online merchants that chose this platform to run their web stores on.
Here are the most important highlights of the new major version.
Security improvements
In 2.4.0, the Magento team invested a huge effort in improving the platform security. The new version fixes more than 30 security issues and comes with a number of enhancements designed to make your Magento experience better protected.
Two-factor authentication
In 2.4.0, Magento implements 2FA as an additional security measure. Moreover, it is now mandatory for Admin users. To log in as an Admin, you must have 2FA configured, and there is no way around it – the 2FA cannot be disabled for Admin users.
For other Magento users, 2FA is still optional. However, we recommend that you configure and use it to enhance your account protection.
Multi-factor authentication for Cloud SSH access
In Magento Commerce Cloud, there is now an option to enable MFA for SSH access. It is not on by default but we strongly recommend that you enable it.
Protection from remote code execution
The new version of Magento now includes a number of measures preventing remote code execution:
- Template filter strict-mode enabled by default.
- Data rendering for UI data providers disabled by default.
PWA Development
The Magento 2.4.0 release comes with a new version of PWA Studio, a tool for building Progressive Web Applications. The new PWA Studio enhances the development opportunities greatly offering a number of new options and improvements.
Page Builder
In the new PWA Studio, Venia Storefront comes with an updated Page Builder with various UI content elements.
Standalone Shopping Cart and Checkout pages
The new release of the PWA Studio features a new standalone Checkout page that is connected to a similarly standalone Shopping Cart page introduced in the earlier version. These new improvements expand developers’ possibilities in creating eCommerce PWAs.
Order confirmation page
Now developers can add a separate order confirmation page to their checkout flows creating seamless customer experiences. The order confirmation page contains a summary of the customer’s order together with their billing and shipping details.
For a complete description of the new PWA Studio version, see Release Notes.
Inventory Management improvements
Inventory Management available in Magento Open Source, Magento Commerce, and Magento Commerce Cloud also received a number of new attractive features designed to help merchants manage their web store inventory in the most optimal way.
In-Store Pickup
This new option allows customers to select a location for their order pickup. This selection is available during checkout and includes searching for nearby locations and displaying their operation details.
Bundle Product support
Bundle Product is a Magento feature allowing customers to form bundles of several related products. The platform supports multi-source bundling and all product types.
Seller-Assisted Shopping
In 2.4.0, Magento enables store administrators to assist customers in their shopping flows giving them access to customers’ accounts. This new feature leads to tremendous time-savings for customers as it allows admins to resolve any issues that customers might face during online shopping.
In addition to troubleshooting, admins can now walk the customer through all stages of the shopping flow creating perfect onboarding experiences.
What’s especially important is that store admins never get access to customers’ passwords and all assistance sessions are destroyed. This way, customers’ data is always protected.
New Media Gallery
In 2.4.0, content management options have become significantly wider. The revamped Media Gallery comes with a new interface supporting search and filtering of media assets with an amazing performance increase – up to 30 times faster. Moreover, online merchants can now evaluate the usage of images in their web stores.
Besides, the new version supports updated integration with Adobe Stock enabling quick and easy finding Adobe Stock preview images.
Magento Commerce – Order Approval Workflow
For B2B customers using Magento Commerce, the new version offers the order approval feature. It allows enterprise customers to set up purchase rules for their employees responsible for online purchases.
The feature includes the possibility to configure unique purchase rules based on various criteria, set up a permission system, retrieve the order history log, receive order notifications.
Authorize.Net, Braintree, and other payment methods integration removed
As of 2.4.0, Magento Open Source no longer supports Authorize.Net and Braintree payment methods at the core code level. Magento Commerce also stops supporting these payment methods together with eWay, CyberSource, and Worldpay.
This is a note to online merchants using these methods to switch to Magento extensions that enable their support.
These are just a few most important highlights of Magento 2.4.0. For the full list of new features, improvements, and bug fixes, refer to the official Release Notes for Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
We at Mage Mastery are going to pay close attention to these and other Magento innovations and you are sure to see them in our courses and tutorials. Subscribe to our blog to follow the latest Magento news and watch out for new training sessions and courses that are surely going to include Magento 2.4.0 development techniques.