What's new in Webconverger 35.1
May 19, 2016
- Much better new hardware support with the Linux 4.5 kernel from Debian backports
- Gtk3 with Firefox 46
- Raft of security updates like OpenSSL & Flash
- Known issue: Virtualbox may have an issue running this release
New in Webconverger 33.1 (Nov 25, 2015)
- Firefox 42
- Flash 11.2.202.548
- Further tweaks and lock downs
New in Webconverger 31 (Jul 30, 2015)
- Fixed an issue with printing
- Pushed Firefox 39
- Further locked down some new Mozilla anti-features like social services, pocket and hello URLs
- Received a fantastic endorsement from the (Internet) famous security pundit SwiftOnSecurity
New in Webconverger 30 (May 25, 2015)
- So we skipped version 29 and 30 marks the fact that we are on Debian Jessie 8.0. Hopefully the only difference you will notice is that this new release should run a bit better on newer hardware. There is an unfortunate caveat that if you are using a 486 kernel based Webconverger, your upgrade will not go smoothly. We noticed that most people using the 486 kernel were doing so mistakenly and we've asked the very few people that are affected, to please simply re-install with any version since 25. Usually you will find your machine to run better, since it's taking advantage of 686 multicore architecture. So yes, we are dropping 486 support.
New in Webconverger 27.1 (Dec 23, 2014)
- Better Intel support, we do recommend NUC hardware and this update will give more flexibility with external displays
- Rebranded to our new logo and do check out our refreshed Website!
- Includes Firefox 34 with accompanying security fixes
- New 3.16 kernel for better hardware support
- New tabswitch= API, a convenient function to switch between tabs when used for Digital Signage
- Important Flash security updates, so important that Mozilla blocked
New in Webconverger 26.0 (Sep 18, 2014)
- Revised boot menu; helping you get started with Neon, our Web signage product
- Firefox 32
- Basic proxy authentication. A customer wanted this to fit into their complex Windows deployment, so now you have it too.
- Tab right click menu removed to make user interface simpler
- Bug fixes to the print button and the job scheduler API (cron=)
- The usual stable security updates and Adobe Flash, with an additional font to make Flash video text render correctly
New in Webconverger 25.0 (Jun 27, 2014)
- New super simple whitelist= filtering option
- New numlock API, to assist deployments in banks and such for numpad data entry
- Incorporated Firefox 29/30 based Australis user interface refresh, being very careful to minimise its impact on our conservative userbase
- Downsized 397M→375M, losing ~22M
- nvidia video card support restored with the nouveau driver
- Various SSL and flash security updates
New in Webconverger 24.0 (Mar 20, 2014)
- Firefox 28
- MP4 video playing support, so you can use an MP4 video now to attract patrons to your service when idle
- Flash security updates, though do try HTML video instead, so we can deprecate Flash
- Linux kernel 3.12, a longterm stable kernel
- New filter= API which complements our new (yet to be launched) filter.webconverger.com service for fine grained blacklisting (think OpenDNS, but cheaper)
New in Webconverger 23.0 (Dec 17, 2013)
- Linux 3.10 kernel for increased hardware compatibility
- Firefox 26 and Flash updates
- A change to make installed version upgrades and downgrades more bandwidth efficient
- BUGFIX: When using a non-English locale, Accept Language headers are properly set. So for some Web applications, pages will be automatically in your language!
New in Webconverger 22.0 (Nov 15, 2013)
- grabdrag API for better touch screen support.
- Emoji fonts! 💻 Webconverger saves you ⌚️ and 💰 giving you 📈 and your users 📰
- Firefox 25 and Flash security updates
New in Webconverger 20.0 (Jun 18, 2013)
- Firefox 21 updates and Flash security updates
- A dist-upgrade, based on Progress Linux 2.0 (baureo)
- On a bit of a diet, 441M to 357M, saving about 60 Megs, by removing files you won't need
- widescrollbars options for touch screen deployments
- Tweaks to force viewing PDFs inline
- Customer configurations are now fetched over SSL
New in Webconverger 19.1 (Apr 11, 2013)
- Printing support completely overhauled with a new printer= API
- Restored nvidia WebGL acceleration using driver version 313.30
- New support API which allows customers to send us their complete (non-browsing) logs for study to http://support.webconverger.com/[MACHINE_IDENTITY]
- Raft of package upgrades
- New prefs= API, to override Firefox preferences, typically used for omitting print headers
- Firefox 20 updates and Flash security updates
- Tweaks to our Firefox kiosk extension (version 45)
New in Webconverger 18.0 (Mar 12, 2013)
- Provisioned the proprietary Google talk plugin, which will make us more applicable in Internet cafes. With a Google account you can make voice and video calls!
- New fonts, you shouldn't see a missing Unicode glyph for your language, thanks to the newly integrated Droid font coverage
- Arabic & Russian i18n support via the default [Alt+shift] key bind, through the boot Languages menu
- Firefox 19
- iptables= API described in filtering
- showprintbutton API described in printing
- 3.8.2 Linux kernel with better hardware support
New in Webconverger 16.0 (Dec 11, 2012)
- New chrome=neon and black background Neon theme
- New homepage= expansions for WEBCID, WEBCVERSION & finally USBID for simple physical authentication in POS use cases
- New noescape option for further locking down of install boot
- Update Firefox 17.0.1 and flash update
- Bug fixes for https_proxy, xinput and disabling addons
New in Webconverger 15.1 (Nov 6, 2012)
- New hosts= feature for simple internet blacklist/whitelist filtering
- Font hinting for smoother page renders
- Faster browser boot times
- Feature and security updates to Firefox to 16.0.2
- Security update to Adobe Flash player 11.2.202.243
- Various updates to the underlying Progress Linux system
New in Webconverger 15 (Oct 9, 2012)
- Firefox 15.0.1
- xinput= touch screen calibration API
- log= debug API
- Restored 486 support for old PC hardware
- chrome=debug for browser debugging & testing
- Fix PDF support which was accidentally broken in 14.1
- Restore printing support with CUPS
New in Webconverger 14.0 (Aug 16, 2012)
- New: 686 kernel, which should show better performance on multi-core hardware
- New: nVidia 302.17 support via bumblebee & VirtualGL for easing deployment
- New: Mozilla Firefox 14.0.1, using the official distribution
- New: noclean API option for deployments where the default clean slate is not desirable (e.g. Granny's bungalow)
- New: swarp API for mouse positioning, many thanks to the suckless community
- Update: Critical Flash update 11.2.202.238
- Fixes: Better xrandr screen handling, for portrait orientation try xrandr-all=--rotate right
- Fixes: Time synchronization doesn't alter the BIOS clock
- Fixes: Logging tweaks to increase signal over noise
- Fixes: Better lock down
New in Webconverger 13.0 (May 26, 2012)
- Search engine changed to DuckDuckGo from Google after signing a revenue share deal on sponsored links like Linux Mint
- New boot API to override DNS
- New API to support scheduled shutdowns
- Updated Firefox to 10.0.4
- Updated Flash to 11.2.202.235
- Updated dwm to 6.0
New in Webconverger 11.2 (Feb 8, 2012)
- Firefox 10
- Linux 3.2 with TCP Proportional Rate Reduction
- Removal of confusing tab groups from Firefox, making things simpler
- Stop accidental downloads of unknown mimetypes, therefore saving precious bandwidth
- For developers: Build upgraded to live build a42 from Debian Live and source has moved to Github
- 10 second retry on net Error, for cases where network isn't quite ready
- More (non-free) wireless firmware: realtek, libertas, brcm80211 & atheros, means your wireless kiosk will almost certainly work
New in Webconverger 7.2 (Jan 31, 2011)
- A minor security update which fixes two issues raised by François Audirac
New in Webconverger 7.0 (Nov 6, 2010)
- This version is based on Debian "squeeze" packages.
- Firefox 3.5.8 was updated to the latest stable release, 3.6.12.
- The boot animation has advanced from Splashy to Plymouth.
- Parallel booting was made faster thanks to Debian Live’s live-boot and live-config.
New in Webconverger 5.6 (Oct 12, 2009)
- 5.6 is a bugfix release.
- The change to webconverger-base fixes the home button when more than one URL is specified on the boot command line.
New in Webconverger 5.5 (Sep 14, 2009)
- This release allows pongs for sysadmins, allows multiple homepages to be set, and hides the cursor after inactivity.
- It has a new PDF viewer, an experimental install, and more.
New in Webconverger 4.2 (Jan 20, 2009)
- This release disallows the removal of the Webconverger addon.
- It disables about:config, though it posed a minor risk.
- The browser has been updated to the 3.0.5 security release.
New in Webconverger 4.1 (Dec 16, 2008)
- Adobe Flash is working correctly again, and has been updated to 10.0.12.36.
New in Webconverger 4.0 (Dec 7, 2008)
- This release has initial wireless support, with several wireless firmware/drivers included.
New in Webconverger 3.4 (Sep 4, 2008)
- A graphical installer that replaces the text installer.
New in Webconverger 3.3 Beta (Aug 29, 2008)
- Webconverger, while normally a live CD, now has an option in the GRUB boot menu to install to a hard drive.
- This is a preview beta that quickly allows users to set up a Web terminal that deletes all private data between sessions.