On the old site we gave them pricing on the service, we gave them a 10 page packet on the company as well as a demo to experience. On the new site we just gave them a pricing sheet. Our error in thinking was that the user just wanted to get down to business, get the pricing and make a decision. We were wrong. Even after we lowered the price on the new price sheet users still didn’t buy.

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Yes it can! This is a significant security improvement.

The safe mode limits PHP to be able to perform actions only on files/folders who's owner is the same as PHP is currently using (this is usually 'apache'). As files normally are created either by the Joomla! application or by FTP access, the combination of PHP file actions and the FTP Layer allows Joomla! to operate in PHP Safe Mode.