WordPress has become a standard because of its simplicity and community. With the recent improvements to page handling and permissions system, it has become my tool of choice for dual website/blog installations.

Quite a few providers nowadays offer one-click blog installs as part of their packaged services, to get you going with the least pain possible. WordPress does require you to upload files and fill in a few details during the installation process, but it is, in general, one of the easiest tools to install. I looked at Spip* recently, and was pleasantly surprised to see the installation could be done from a single, small PHP install file to upload on your server.

Of course, php install files are not an option on providers that do not allow PHP scripts to initiate FTP connections; many large hosts offer one-click installs for that reason, and also to link the script to many other services, such as statistics.

Yahoo!, for example, has a one-click install for WordPress, and a checkbox in the administration interface to update to the latest version automatically (always nice to use the latest version, it’s improved all the time). Problem is, I had a case yesterday of a WP blog hosted on Yahoo! that had remained at version 2.0.2, whereas the most recent version is 2.6.3.

In all cases, I prefer to retain control over the tools I use. While one-click installers on regular hosts typically don’t tamper with the installation process, big name providers tend to install quite a few non-standard modules and tamper with paths, which make them harder to upgrade when the time comes.

One small example with the Yahoo! Small Business one-click WordPress installation. Yahoo, for security reasons I guess, doesn’t let you change or even view the .htaccess file. The side-effect, well-known to all Yahoo! users who read the fine print, is that you lose your permalinks if you upgrade WordPress in the standard way. WordPress developers are nice enough to provide workaround modules for such cases.

One-click installs are a nice facility, and I’m sure they work as expected in most cases. As always, look around and see whether people have had issues with a host’s one-click installs. You’re usually better off in the long run if you perform a standard installation.

* By the way, Spip is a support character in Franquin’s Spirou toon albums, a slightly impatient and hazelnut-craving squirrel. Spirou and Fantasio albums were by far my favorite when I was a kid, and I still read them and marvel at the scenario, rhythm and effectiveness of the drawing.