Why a v5?

Everything is explained in the previous article. As a short explanation, old Apps were really hard to maintain and to add features in. The v5 has been designed to be flexible and easier to upgrade.

Highlights

• The v5 is now available as a console app for both Linux and Windows. A desktop (viewer) version is also available for Windows. You can download them from the Applications page (opens new window).
• Both Linux and Windows versions now share the same code. In the previous versions, Linux was really late and outdated.
• We kept Chromium as the internal browser. It has been upgraded for both Windows (80) and Linux (78) versions. Although it raised some challenges, we prefer to follow the newest versions of it to make sure the surf is as close as if it was made in a real browser.
• We had a big focus over the possibility to upgrade the Apps seamlessly. We wanted everyone to be on the latest version and make it as easy for a member that has 1 instance as for the one that has 100.

What's new

Although main goals of the v5 were to unify the code and create a good base for the future, we also added few new features into it:

• Support of the locale: All the previous versions used "en-US" without the possibility to change it. The v5 now take the locale of the current machine.
• Reload: A new feature will come soon for your links, the possiblity to trigger a reload of your page. This feature will be added as soon as the deployment of the v5 reaches at least 50% of the total of instances.

Roadmap for the end of old Apps

With this new version comes the retirement of the old ones. You will find below the different steps that will be taken:

• Now - For everyone: we encourage you to test the v5 and contact us if you find anything that is not working properly.
• In few days: An update of the monitoring page (opens new window) will add an indicator for you to quickly check if your running instances are up to date. If not, you will be invited to update them.
• In few weeks: When the number of instances that use the new version reaches 20% and no major issue has been spotted, the v5 will not be considered as a Beta anymore.
• Following the previous step, all previous versions will be considered obsolete and marked as such on your monitoring page (opens new window). As the time will pass, we will also warn the members that have old versions with the following methods: an alert on the website after login, up to a personalized email.
• In less than 3 months: The old versions (v3 and Definitive) will be shut down and won't work anymore.

It is just the beginning

The v5 release is a very big step, probably one of the most important achievements since 2017. But we still have a lot of ideas and work to do. The next focus will be the rework of the efficiency system.

It's still something that a lot of members don't understand that well. We want to bring a new system:

• Making sure that it is easy to understand
• Based on the classical ratio system
• Taking into account more parameters (the quality of the machine, the connection speed)
• And making it based on every of your instances, not global for your account

Until then, don't forget to download the new App and have a good surf.