News

March 27, 2024

Version 1.34 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• better support for high precision scrolling devices in Windows 10/11
• fixed several problems with menus in Linux builds
• improved user key-change dialog that now shows both public and private key
• channel/network creation dialog now shows both public and private key
• new key finder for Linux/Windows that can create public keys that start with user-specified string
• file/folder selection dialogs start browsing from previous location
• minor improvements to split-pane resizing algorithms
• fixed problems with rich text view scroll-to-selection function
• fixed problems with rich text view page up/down cursor placement and selection
• minor fixes to mouse-pointer icon selection when hovering rich text views
• in Windows build folder selection windows, no longer auto-expand drives within My Computer / This-PC
• better right-click options for user links in chat / private message / info
• new scrolling configuration window available from Settings > UI Behavior
• new vertical and horizontal mouse wheel speed controls in scrolling configuration window
• support macro double-clicks in Windows builds that run mouse customization software
• several other minor fixes and adjustments throughout the program



March 7, 2024

Version 1.33 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• added local IP address / interface binding options in Settings > Tor Connection
• added SOCKS/HTTP proxy capabilities for internal Tor client
• fixed problems with link parsing in private message window
• fixed problems with time formatting in private message window
• fixed tray icon problems on certain Linux desktops
• fixed rare crash on close in Linux build
• minor changes to custom color items list
• new file selector control for Windows build
• new folder selector control for Windows build
• fixed problems with tab control left-right scroll
• minor improvements to paned divider control resizing algorithms
• fixed problems with right-clicking links in message / info views
• fixed GTK window background painting mismatch problems on systems using Wayland
• add option to disable smooth scrolling in Settings > UI Behavior
• update IP location tables
• several other minor UI updates



January 18, 2024

Version 1.32 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• new private message interface with history
• fixed crash when opening floating search window
• several internal Tor client optimizations for more reliable connections
• in Settings > Tor Connection > Preferred Locations, a minus prefix can be used to exclude
• temporary contacts are saved between sessions if there are pending messages
• several GUI fixes and improvements



January 7, 2024

Version 1.31 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• fixed crash in Android IME functions upon closing certain views
• updated Android Storage Access Framework URI encoding rules
• Android local file/folder name sanitizer improvements
• updated file system diagnostic logging window in Help > Diagnostic Tools
• fixed problems with some right-click menu options in Downloads view
• improved text rendering in Windows builds, more accurate color placement
• fixed minor problems with Android file picker in API 23-26
• configuration export function now works correctly under Android SAF
• removed unnecessary read/write storage permissions from Android manifest
• chat rooms will show scrollbar at all times if not scrolled to bottom
• fixed custom color selector to not overwrite editing color after delayed reload
• copy to clipboard function in chat rooms will take user names instead of links
• pressing control-shift-C in chat rooms will copy user links instead of names
• several other minor GUI fixes and adjustments



January 5, 2024

Version 1.29 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• several fixes to the Android IME client to improve soft keyboard handling
• fixed crash in some Android API 33-34 systems upon loading interface
• fixed menu/header/combobox arrow rendering problems in some Android API 31+ systems
• topic now correctly updates on channels
• fixed minor problems with channel admin configuration window
• user copy link in chat now works correctly
• chat room text color now adjusts correctly
• tooltips on GTK tray icons fixed
• persistent contact list open state between sessions
• fixed minor problems in search window that would cause early stop
• other minor GUI adjustments



December 31, 2023

Version 1.28 has been released.  This is a major update with many changes:

• new Android builds
• major GUI framework update
• all control surface colors can be customized and themed
• new default full-dark color scheme
• settings import/export/clear function
• countless other fixes and improvements



January 29, 2023

Version 1.27 has been released.  The following changes were made:

• several updates to internal Tor client
• updated Tor authoritative directory list
• new IsolatePID option for external Tor client
• updated internal HTTP server for web connections
• internal HTTP server fully supports gzip/deflate/brotli compression
• optimized config file decompression routines for much faster program loading
• program shutdown and saving of config files is much faster
• eliminated network/channel response delays when downloading large information updates
• increased per-connection bandwidth limits on channel/network connections
• improved large information upload procedures for non-host managers/owners
• new full-featured WYSIWYG editor for user/channel/network information editing
• upgraded rich-text controls for info/message/chat/log views
• completely revised Windows message loop with precise CPU usage throttling
• using xdg-mime instead of gconftool for file/protocol association in GTK build
• networks now track total files/bytes/users in advertised networks and embed in gather response
• single-line edit control in chat rooms now handles pasting multi-line text much better
• many other minor fixes throughout the program



December 6, 2022

Version 1.26 has been released.  The following changes were made:

• fixed crash in Tor consensus processing
• several other major optimizations to internal Tor client
• fixed library change detection and updating problems in Windows builds
• updates to the GUI including a faster rich text view when displaying large documents



October 29, 2022

Version 1.25 has been released.  There have been many changes:

• replaced chat rooms with completely revised channels system
• several new optional columns in channels list, selectable from the Layout button
• new Properties button to allow any channel to be in a separate floating window
• new Information tab for channels, which is automatically updated
• simplified Chat tab for channels
• new Bandwidth and Event Log tabs for channels
• Options tab for channels, with full range of controls for administering users and settings
• several tweaks and adjustments to the Tor client connection logic to better handle slow routers
• fixed rare crash in Tor circuit recycling function after guard node unexpected disconnect
• extended several Tor circuit-building timeouts to better handle unstable connections
• fixed crash when optional external Tor client loses control connection during connection setup phase
• fixed crash upon exit program due to lingering download operations not resetting fully
• fixed folder download duplicate files problem if list download interrupted
• tray-balloon download folder completion notification fixed, now shows full folder name
• several new optional columns for networks list, selectable from the Layout button
• new Properties button to allow any network to be in a separate floating window
• new Options tab for networks, with controls for administering users, files, and settings
• fixed several sort updating problems in the GUI
• fixed several minor rich-text control rendering and scrolling problems
• fixed single and multi-line text control rendering problems on systems with dark OS control themes
• fixed rare crash in menu positioning logic on Windows builds
• fixed paned-view divider restore position problems after program restart when tabbed views are contained
• fixed background color rendering on tabbed views in Windows builds
• fixed rich-text control disabled background color selection on Linux/GTK builds
• multi-line text views, rich-text views, and list/tree views now have correctly font-scaled minimum height/width
• accurate maximum text bytes enforcement in edit box / text views with multi-byte UTF-8 characters
• in GTK, fixed window closedown sequencing on program exit, now immediately closes all windows before saving config files
• added 5 second lingering shutdown timeout
• configurable preferred relay locations in Settings > Tor
• re-wrote Library > Groups window, now correctly displays group members and has accurate controls on right-click menu
• several minor spacing adjustments in the GUI
• added more thorough checking routines when using enable_memory_checks.txt in app binary folder
• fixed rare crash in hosted network file index maintenance routines
• updated IP-location tables



April 8, 2022

Version 1.24 has been released.  There have been many important updates:

• several optimizations in the network client / server
• CPU usage when sharing many thousands of files greatly reduced
• library updates are flushed to networks faster
• updated Linux configuration directory location
• more accurate text entry maximum length when using multi-byte Unicode characters
• fixed settings update problems when window is closed with spinbox/editbox focus
• completely new rich-text view control that is used for chat rooms, information views, and messages
• rich-text view scrollbar visibility problems solved
• much faster rich-text view rendering and re-wrapping when displaying very large text documents
• updated chat room text formatting routines, more accurate link edge detection, better link tooltips
• chat message name tags are a different color if the user is currently offline
• removed redundant chat room topic notifications
• if chat room is not online, enter key is disabled in message entry box
• removed user name change notifications from chat rooms
• fixed sorting problems for user names in chat rooms and network admin views
• network user offline user purge function now works correctly and scans more often
• network max_files config directive now properly enforced
• changed new network default max_files config directive to allow 500,000 files for normal users
• fixed corruption problem on remotely-set chat room and network information when over 60K bytes long
• fixed problems with single-column mode tree and list views showing ellipsis at wrong width
• tree and list view column headers now always correctly indicate sort direction in GTK
• fixed several program shutdown sequencing problems that could cause a rare crash
• new offline contact icon so usernames with only Unicode icons can still indicate status in contact list
• when toggling a network group selection, shared file list updates are sent to network server much sooner
• fixed problems with download connection recovery when internet connection is dropped
• can now drag-drop folders into library to add
• several minor bug-fixes and optimizations in built-in Tor client
• network add window now has checkbox to disable announcing to other connected networks
• updated IP-location tables that support flag icons in Tor diagnostic view



November 9, 2021

Version 1.23 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• completely revised program shutdown procedures, much faster exit
• streamlined Library loading and saving
• memory optimizations for Library when very large number of files shared
• fixed problem with Library folder watch detecting nested folder name changes
• added Library setting to skip initial scan on program startup
• added command-line switch -noinitscan to suppress Library initial scan on startup
• fixed minor problems in GTK build with chat room text entry box background color change
• fixed crash on Windows 7 machines upon rare recursion overflow in message loop
• fixed problems with mouse-wheel scrolling on Windows 7 and older
• chat rooms now display date notifications properly when using timestamps
• fixed rendering problems with bandwidth/CPU/memory charts when displaying large quantities
• added option to Chat Room creation window to enable/disable advertising to networks
• minor fixes to upload/download display formatting
• a few other minor fixes in the GUI



October 15, 2021

Version 1.22 has been released.  There have been some important updates:

• completely re-engineered hosted network file name word index to use much less RAM
• fixed several problems when logged in with duplicate user keys on hosted networks
• fixed crash in hosted network file name cache maintenance routines
• problem with network client state disk-caching fixed, which was causing file sync mismatches
• fixed problem with hosted network offline user state disk-caching, which also caused sync problems
• minor fixes to the GUI rich-text control on Windows builds



September 14, 2021

Version 1.21 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• image files can be directly viewed in a browse window
• links to image files will spawn a browse window on left click, show download menu on right click
• fixed minor problems with Network / Chat Room Information sync
• factor in Base64 encoding inflation in add-image window
• fixed minor problem with unwanted main window activation when initiating a browse
• a few other minor fix-ups in the GUI



September 13, 2021

Version 1.19 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• fixed problems with chart rendering on Windows builds
• enlarged Network and Channel Information maximum size to 500 KB
• implemented new compressed protocol for Channel/Network Information transfer
• can now drop images onto local user Information (edited from contacts menu)
• local user Information maximum size is now 1 MB
• user Information transfer protocol completely revised
• updated Chat Room web .onion interface to properly display images from Information
• fixed problems with text-view scroll bar updating on Windows builds
• several other minor protocol fixes to support backward compatibility with older clients



September 12, 2021

Version 1.18 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• image display now supported in Network and Chat Room information
• drag-drop jpeg/png image files onto Network/Chat Info edit window
• new image insert window with controls for compression and size
• mouse wheel zoom scroll on all bandwidth charts
• on Windows systems, mouse wheel input is now directed to hovered control regardless of focus
• minor text word-wrap fixes around double-quoted strings
• fixed rare crash when network files sync is interrupted
• fixed crash in SSL error handler
• fixed rare crash during program startup due to object creation sequencing issues
• outgoing message box in Chat Rooms now has correct colors when offline / connecting
• tooltip on Network / Chat Room now shows source network from last gather sighting
• Linux version is now built on newer GCC with more optimizations turned on
• many other minor fixes in the GUI

We will be adding image support to other areas of the program soon.  Other major updates are on the way.



August 21, 2021

Version 1.17 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• extensive revision of built-in Tor client
• fixed guard error handling to fully drop connection after certain circuit errors
• guard connection key rotations are now handled correctly
• improved consensus processing and validation
• now supports consensus diffs, which will save synchronization bandwidth
• circuit error handling and recovery has been greatly improved
• service intro points are now more carefully assigned to guards to avoid concentration
• fixed UTF-16 surrogate pairs display problem in Windows builds
• improved post-disconnect retry timing for client network / chat / download connections
• fixed several other minor GUI issues



May 26, 2021

Version 1.16 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• improved program loading time
• fixed problem with excess file handles in Linux when downloading many small files
• download request dispatcher completely re-written
• much faster download of folders containing many small files
• fixed hosted chat room crash upon system suspend/resume
• added Library folder right-click option to force a refresh
• completely re-written rich text rendering on Windows builds, now much much faster
• optimized chat window text reloading and filtering routines
• more space-efficient storage for chat room console
• added chat room status update line when program is closed with chat room still running
• modal dialog windows now position correctly on Windows build
• now properly saving user levels in hosted chat rooms
• revised Tor connection closedown sequencing
• chat room leave notifications are now much more reliable upon room close or program exit
• after a user is banned, exit from the chat room is now immediate
• fixed rare crash during program closedown caused by incorrect module unload order
• individual chat room notification options have had several minor display fixes
• no notification for chat room messages originated locally
• fixed minor GUI problems in Settings - Notifications
• replaced several elliptic-curve functions with much faster hand-written assembly versions
• fixed problems with Shift-ESC clearing of chat room text
• double-click a chat room or network will start it, but not stop it
• message rate-limit in chat rooms is now working more accurately
• added several internal rate-limits to Tor connections to better protect against bad peers
• fixed minor bottom-scroll problem in chat rooms when contact sidebar is hidden/shown
• several other minor fixes and adjustments in the GUI



April 25, 2021

Version 1.15 is now available.

This release contains several important optimizations and bug-fixes to the new internal Tor implementation.

There may be some improvement in download speeds, and there should also be less CPU usage to run hosted services.



April 23, 2021

Version 1.14 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• built-in custom Tor implementation
• added settings for internal/external Tor client
• added Raw Connections diagnostic tool to the Help menu
• re-engineered download request scheduling, much better performance
• fixed problems when browsing users with very large folders
• better connection status feedback for Networks/Chat
• better hosted service availability feedback for Networks/Chat
• numerous other minor improvements in the GUI

Several more major improvements are on the way.  Please stay tuned.



March 2, 2021

Version 1.13 has been released.  The following changes have been made:

• automatic Tor path detection during setup if it's installed to default location
• completely re-wrote chat room client connection
• added chat room delayed disconnect feature, to reduce leave/join cycling
• improved chat room client connection reliability
• save and reload chat room text when program is closed and re-opened
• lowered GLIBC requirement for Linux build, only requires 2.17 instead of 2.29
• more thorough link-time optimizations for Linux build
• chat room owners can demote or remove other non-keyholding owners
• fixed minor crash in chat GUI when right-clicking offline web users
• fixed right-click menus for web users in chat
• left-click on a chat web user will now bring up an info window
• fixed minor problems when copying text with links from a chat view
• fixed problems with join/leave notification filtering losing messages from cache
• chat room config directive user_leave_delay now works correctly
• improved chat room list status colors, only shows blue when online and active
• network owners can demote or remove other non-keyholding owners
• possible to localize the instance lock to the app folder by adding darkmx_local_instance_check.txt
• if using local instance check, tray icon shows local user name in tooltip
• fixed captions on some network/chat admin windows
• fixed aspect-ratio problems with QR codes on some systems
• when opening a browse/info from a shell link, no longer raises the main window too
• network/chat connection retry intervals slightly randomized to prevent re-connect avalanche after host interruptions



February 26, 2021

After much work, DarkMX has finally been released.  Enjoy!




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