News archive

2006.12.23

Biggest release ever!

2006.06.20

This release allows to easily translate Frost into another language, find some details in 'What has changed' section. Some annoying bugs were fixed, and Frost messages contain an anonymous message id now. This is a preparation for the threaded message view (which is not yet implemented). An important bug for file indices is fixed, upgrading is strongly recommended!

2006.04.21

Big new release! There are alot of fixes and enhancements. One of the most noticeable changes: Frost is now able to run on Freenet 0.5 or Freenet 0.7! It is possible to import your identity and contacts from an existing Frost for Freenet 0.5.
Please check the readme files for instructions how to update Frost or upgrade to Frost for Freenet 0.7.

2006.02.17

New release! The 'lost messages' problem should be finally fixed now. There are some more fixes for other annoying problems, check the changelog.

2005.10.20

This new release fixes the upload file functionality that behaved strange before. And a message archiving feature was added, see options dialog.

2005.10.11 - 2

The release 11-Oct-2005 has a bug which was reported by a user. It maybe does'nt start up after installation. This is fixed now and a new version is available for download.

2005.10.11

Important bugfix release! This bugfix release fixes many issues. Frost now uses lesser threads and lesser memory, the system load was greatly reduced.

2005.09.18

New release! There is a big list of changes and improvements.

2005.08.30

This release includes some GUI bugfixes and an important fix for message uploads. We know about the spam attack on several Frost boards and we think about a design of a solution for that.

2005.02.03

The first release of the year. It includes some new features and fixes a few longstanding bugs (hopefully downloading of large files will be reliable at last). Enjoy it!

2005.01.09

We have a new developer! His name is Roman Glebov and he has started by adding a new feature to Frost: now you can see again those messages that have been deleted (they appear crossed). I hope he will enjoy working with us.

2004.12.21

The voting on the directive on software patents was postponed this afternoon thanks to the Polish Government. Mr. Wlodzimierz Marcinski, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Scientific Research and Information Technology, travelled to Brussels today to demand that the voting be dropped from the agenda.

2004.12.20

The EU Council is trying to sneak through approval for the directive on software patents ignoring the opposition of the European Parliament. Click on this banner to read more about it:

NO to software patents!

2004.12.02

And just ten days after the last one, a new version is out. The changes are few in number but there is one that I really love: now you can delete messages. Annoying messages are less annoying if you can just delete them, right?
Besides, now for the first time, the files in that release come with a SHA1 signature so if you find them somewhere else you can check if they are the authentic ones or not.

2004.12.01

We have inaugurated our new forum. If you want to discuss anything about Frost, ask for new features or look for help, that is the right place to do it. You can go there through the menu on the left side of this web site.

2004.11.22

A new version of Frost has been released. Do not expect significant changes from the previous one (actually the changes are pretty small). However, releasing this new version was necessary because a significant incompatibility with Freenet since version 5099 has been fixed.

2004.05.28

A new version of Frost has been released. We hope you like it.

2003.12.04

Work has started on a new project called onlinecodes . It will implement an algorithm that we expect will perform much better than FEC and will improve downloads greatly.

2003.11.08

Welcome to our new developer, Kevloral! He implemented skin support for Frost which is in the latest snapshot. We also have a translation tool and a cool new splash screen thanks to Jantho!

2003.11.07

We really need a very cool FROST LOGO . So if you think you can draw one, or if you know someone that knows someone, please ask him to draw one! The logo should fit well on a low resolution screen (we want to use it in a splashscreen that is displayed while frost is loading). We alse could need some new banner graphics. Please send me your drawings.

2003.09.22

An early implementation of rewritten FEC code is finished. There is more work to do, but it runs and here is a first performance benchmark. You are welcome to verify the results using the latest CVS version of Frost. Please write a mail if you encouter completely different results during your own performance tests.

I used a 630MiB file containing random data. File was inserted using Frost (yes this works now) and htl=0. Then I downloaded the file using fproxy, frost and fuqid 1.2; all using 15 threads and htl=0, no healing.
The time contains download time, decode time and for fuqid and fproxy the copy to final file (frost changes file directly). So i measured the time between start of download and complete finish of download. I used a laptop, P3, 850MHz, 512MB RAM, win2k, sun java 1.4.2

The results:

fproxy: 45 minutes, 30 seconds
fuqid : 23 minutes, 09 seconds
frost : 19 minutes, 11 seconds


Looks nice?!

2003.08.29

Wow, somebody donated $500 to Frost. THANK YOU!!! A day later, somebody else donated some more, thank you too!!

2003.08.15

There is a FAQ page available now. Check it out, and if you think something should be added drop a line on Frost ;-)

2003.07.15

Welcome to those new to Frost!

If this is your first time trying Frost, you'll see its quite different from other filesharing programs. Its anonymous, and yet has a very personal atmosphere.

If you know how to use newsgroups, you'll find Frost very easy to use and will feel right at home. If you're used to other filesharing apps, you should know that the best way to find what you're looking for is to ask for it. If you can't find it in the search results, post a message to the relevant board and someone will respond to you.

2003.06.30

Website update. The logo and the links above were made with the Gimp . I removed the frames so that the page can now be viewed with lynx. (Jantho)

2003.05.08

IMPORTANT: Development of the regular version has been discontinued. Only Frost-WOT will have new versions from now on. If you are using regular Frost, you are strongly urged to migrate.

2003.03.23

We have new developers! Luke and bback will be working on a library component for Frost that will make it easier to share large number of files. As soon as that is done we'll have a release suitable for mass publicity ;-)

2003.03.12

Frost needs your help! We need an easier way for new users to share their files, similar to the "libraries" other apps have. If you can program in Swing or AWT, please drop me a line

2003.02.26

A user manual for the development version of Frost (Web of trust) is now available to download. Many thanks to the (anonymous) contributor!

2003.02.03

Finally I did IT. Yes, I really removed Windows and am now using Redhat 8.0. The 'Window Maker' is absolutely cool, but it took some days to get my wlan pci card up and running. Well, lost some mails and my PGP key does not work anymore :(
BTW, get the NEW FROST RELEASE (now). Many thanks to Zlatin and Sandworm for their work!

2003.01.20

We have a new member now, Zlatin. He's working on the Frost code and I hope that we soon will have some new features. He also added 'Sandworm's' changes to the CVS. As soon as we have a working version, I'll announce it here and put it into the downloads section.

2002.07.12

Finaly we managed to add some new features to Frost. (Sorry, not much time for writing, just download the new files).

2002.06.20

Some more code. Unsent messages are resent the next time Frost gets started. And the help window got a little improved. Hmmm, that's all I remember.

2002.06.17

Finaly, a new feature (wow). Added a file type selector to the search tab. And there is a new menu entry in the help menu, called help (wow again). It displays a simple text file in a new window. I'll try to write some hints there. Also fixed some bugs and added some new ones.

2002.06.10

I continued my work on Frost. I made a clean install on my machines and started fixing some bugs. As soon as I can find my update script (as soon as I can remember where I put my frost release directory...) I'll just upload my changes to the homepage. Please do not expect too much, although the code really changed a lot, most changes are not visible. For example the way Frost updates the boards has completely changed. Boards with more traffic are updated more often than boards with less traffic.
I noticed that still people are using Frost and I want to thank them for their support.

2002.05.08

Hey, Frost really pays :) Thank you very much! I think I soon have to release a new version. But I want to add FMB'ish message archives first. Hope I can do that next weekend.
Wow, I'm no longer a student now. I passed my exams and are now working for my university.

2002.04.25

I'm back. Finished my exams (and passed them) and completely reconfigured and rebuilt my machine. I moved it from a small case into a big tower case and replaced and removed some fans. I now use special fans from 'Papst' which are very silent. I also tried to put my harddrives in a 'Silent Drive' box, but my 25GB IBM HD refuses to work in such a box. I'm not sure what the reason for that is, but it could be that the metal plates, that are used to cool the disk are confusing it. It returns garbage data leading to disk failures and kernel exceptions.
I noticed that there are still several people using Frost, and there are lots of page hits each day. I even got my first 10$ from the donations page! Keep it this way!

2002.02.23

Tried to fix the Java 1.4 problem. I had no time to test it much. If you have some Java 1.4 problems, try to replace the frost.jar file with the one from the download section.

2002.02.18

Back from FOSDEM. Although Ian did not manage to participate, it was a great meeting. Lots of developers from all over the world presented their projects and in the evenings we tried some of the more than 160 (!!!) different belgium beers. I had my camera with me and uploaded some pictures to the ' Other ' section. There's also a link to much more pictures of the event.

2002.02.12

Added the 'other' page. It will contain several random stuff, some Frost banners for now. Please do NOT link directly to these banners, copy them to your own page.
I'm very happy with the new pages, they load much faster.

2002.02.09

Back to the roots. These new pages are more easy to maintain for me.