As of January 2, 2019 Maxmind discontinued the original GeoLite databases that we have been using in all these examples. You can read the full announcement here: https://support.maxmind.com/geolite-legacy-discontinuation-notice/
This means that if you require to have an updated version of the GeoIP information, there are a few steps you need to do:
1. Install the GeoIP2 client libraries (Composer, Phar)
2. Download the new GeoIP2 datasets
3. Update your application to make use of this new API and dataset
You can find detailed instructions on http://maxmind.github.io/GeoIP2-php/
C extension
Yes, there is a C extension available! Check out https://github.com/maxmind/MaxMind-DB-Reader-php for more details on how to install and use this extension.