Changelog
Even death stars have an exhaust vent.
AI ranked friend suggestions and a shared friends lens across core views.
Bug fixes and improvements.
Builds:v26.5.201-devDev
Keeps crash recovery, AI downloads, and common desktop actions responsive
Fixes
- Startup recovery can now check for updates, install them, relaunch, and open fallback browser downloads
- Desktop AI downloads and renderer recovery are now more stable
- Update outbox test fixture types
- Preserve side-effect queue serialization on timeout
- Kept desktop side-effect queues serialized even when a queued task times out, so one slow persistence or sync action cannot let later work overlap out of order
- Moved provider health, secure storage, cloud upload, snapshots, and outbox side effects through typed queues so UI gestures return quickly
- Prevented read, like, archive, and sync-confirmation item patches from making the outbox rescan the full feed
- Updated desktop item patches incrementally on the main thread, including count-map identity preservation for like and sync-confirmation patches
- Fixed stale outbox test fixtures so release validation covers the new patch-drain path
- Integrated AI pack downloads now stream through native disk IO, which keeps large local model downloads out of the WebKit renderer
- Renderer recovery now rebuilds stale macOS windows on the main thread after heartbeat failure
- Local AI classification now stays off until Topics and ranking is enabled, and settings show classification as off while disabled
- Desktop scrapers now log and respect WebKit memory pressure before launching new provider work
Follow-ups
- Preserve count maps for neutral patches
- Item patch state incrementally
- Route desktop hot-path side effects
Integrated AI pack ladder, constrain settings list growth, and an Appearance animation control with None, Light, and Detailed options, so app motion can be reduced or disabled across controlled fades, slides, layout transitions, shimmers, and theme changes
Features
- Integrated AI pack ladder
- An Appearance animation control with None, Light, and Detailed options, so app motion can be reduced or disabled across controlled fades, slides, layout transitions, shimmers, and theme changes
- Give story cards the same shared feed layout transition as regular cards, so opening a story can animate from the primary list into the compact sidebar rail instead of snapping
Fixes
- Run background social scraper windows fully hidden by default and restart cleanly if Tauri cannot rebuild a stalled main window, so Freed Desktop does not strand users on a black window.
- Rebuild the main window through a hidden keepalive window during renderer recovery, so watchdog recovery no longer quits the app before the replacement window opens
- Batch local AI model file writes and throttle progress updates during model pack installs to keep Settings responsive during large downloads
- Keep Pause available while an AI model download is active
- Feed card max width and desktop feed thumbnails so dense feeds stay readable restored
- Scale the desktop Settings dialog with the viewport so tall settings lists remain usable on smaller displays
- Social scrapes now measure Freed-owned WebKit memory, reclaim stale scraper windows and oversized network cache, and keep provider errors scoped to the right settings panel
- Renderer recovery and model installs are now more stable
- Main window reopen after renderer recovery restored
- Expanded provider rows now draw wider highlights, shift social icons left, and keep unread and total counts pinned in place
- Primary search suggestions now rank useful scopes, actions, and recent destinations more clearly
- Channel avatar fallbacks are shared across feed cards, Friends, and map markers for more consistent identity cues
- Cloud sync nudges now show a countdown before a delayed reminder becomes active
- Background AI summarization now runs through one paced fetcher worker with randomized delay, capped backoff, and 60-second AI timeouts, so slow local models cannot stack overlapping work
- Scope social provider error copy by provider, so Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X setup states say what actually failed
Follow-ups
- Renderer heartbeat telemetry now has a clearer recovery path for future black-window reports.
- Freed Desktop now keeps the app alive while rebuilding a stalled main window, and large AI model pack downloads put less pressure on the interface
- Motion preferences now have a synced default of Detailed, while None removes app-controlled animation for users who need a quiet interface
- Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn scraping should keep moving for larger libraries unless Freed itself remains under unsafe memory pressure after cleanup
- Source action menus and provider status surfaces now have tighter geometry coverage in the desktop E2E suite
Renderer recovery, semantic content enrichment, unified AI provider settings, and read-on-scroll fixes
Features
- Semantic content enrichment
- Unified AI provider settings
Fixes
- Recover Freed Desktop after main renderer stalls instead of leaving the app without a main window
- Polish reader sidebar and toolbar layout
- Polish AI settings local pack
- Prevent health persistence from freezing dev preview
- Mark feed items read while scrolling
- Provider health persistence no longer uses the Tauri store mutex path that could freeze Freed Desktop shortly after launch
Dev releases now build for every primary supported platform.
Fixes
- Dev tagged releases now use the same primary build matrix as production, covering macOS Apple Silicon, macOS Intel, Windows x64, and Linux x64.
- Paused local AI model downloads keep their progress after the app reloads or restarts.
Builds:v26.4.2800-devDev