January 31, 2023

Briar Desktop 0.4.0-beta released - Windows support and forums

Briar Desktop 0.4.0-beta for Linux and Windows including the first new feature: forums

We are very happy to announce that we have accomplished two big goals! We just released a version of Briar Desktop for Windows so that roughly one year after our first version, we now support another major operating system in addition to Linux. With the beta release 0.4.0 you can now try out Briar Desktop on your Windows machines with the operating systems Windows 10 and 11.

The second accomplishment is that we implemented the next among Briar’s major features - forums - which works on both operating systems. Forums allow public conversations. Anyone who joins a forum can invite their own contacts, too. In the left navigation drawer you will now find an additional item for forums, just below the item for private conversations. There you can see your list of already joined forums or create a new one and invite your contacts.

As this is our first release for these new features, we are looking forward to your feedback and reports if something does not work as expected. Otherwise, enjoy the new features! You can download the new versions for Linux and Windows here:

https://desktop.briarproject.org/

Many thanks to Mikolai and Torsten for making forums happen in Briar Desktop and many thanks to Sebastian for building the very first Windows version.

While funded by the NLnet foundation the desktop team strives to implement all major features from the Briar Android app in the desktop version. The remaining features are blogs, group chats and the ability to connect to the Briar Mailbox. We are also working on bringing the whole Briar communication experience to macOS. Stay tuned.

Briar has received funding from the Small Media Foundation, the Open Internet Tools Project, Access Now, the Open Technology Fund, the Prototype Fund, Internews, the NLnet Foundation, the Next Generation Internet programme, the ISC Project and eQualit.ie.

Contact

Torsten Grote <torsten@briarproject.org> [PGP key]

Michael Rogers <contact@briarproject.org> [PGP key]

Twitter: @BriarApp

Mastodon: @Briar