PHPMyAdmin is complaining that 'mcrypt' isn't available -- am I bothered?

I've set up PHPMyAdmin on a Mac, and it's complaining that it can't load the 'mcryp开发者_Python百科t' function(s). Apparently the stock install of PHP on Macs doesn't have it.

Can anyone tell me what the implications are? Neither the PHPMyAdmin documentation or the PHP documentation seems to tell me what kind of problem, if any, this will cause me.

This is just a local, personal, database, by the way. Not production, never will be.

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/documentation/ says:

When using the "cookie" authentication method, the mcrypt extension is strongly suggested for most users and is required for 64–bit machines. Not using mcrypt will cause phpMyAdmin to load pages significantly slower.

To install mcrypt on centos 6 for phpmyadmin, you will need to install the EPEL repo on your server from http://namhuy.net/641/centos-6-install-mcrypt-for-phpmyadmin.html

i386

# rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

x86_64

# http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

then use yum command to install the mcrypt package

# yum install php-mcrypt