I am helping a friend on their website. They really need to up upgrade to the latest version of phpmyadmin. They are using an older version and therefore very vulnerable. Can anyone offer any suggestions/sources on how to do so? I was looking at their files and it looks like version 2.5.

backup config.php and overwrite the entire directory with contents of newer tarball, then put the config.php back

I'm pretty sure this is something that has to be done server side. Have your friend contact there host.

What is the difference between uploading files by ftp and extracting them right on server from the archive?

I am looking at the options on web page http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/downloads.php

How do you know which one to choose. His site is only in english. Also, what is the alpha download?

Thanks,

Do I save the config.php file, delete the phpmyadmin folder, download and upload the files from all-languages.zip, upload the backed-up config.php....then verify all coding is still good to go?

Latest stable version is:
phpMyAdmin 2.11.8.1

Yes, something like that.