If you are not able to update/install plugins to a newer version without providing your FTP connection information. This is a common issue whereby the WordPress system can’t write to your /wp-content folder directly.

Problem

WordPress will only prompt you for your FTP connection information while trying to install plugins or a WordPress update if it cannot write to /wp-content directly. Otherwise, if your web server has write access to the necessary files, it will take care of the updates and installation automatically. This method does not require you to have FTP/SFTP or SSH access, but it does require your to have specific file permissions set up on your webserver. It will try various methods in order, and fall back on FTP if Direct and SSH methods are unavailable.

How to Fix

If for some reason you do not want to rely on the automatic check for which filesystem method to use, you can define a constant, ‘FS_METHOD’ in your wp-config.php file. Open wordpress-site/wp-config.php add

 define('FS_METHOD','direct');

It will allow you to use the ‘direct’ method of installing wordpress plugins, wordpress themes, or wordpress updates.