This is our latest Beta Release, released October 21, 2010.

Beta Releases contain newer fixes and features than our Stable Releases, and by definition not necessarily as stable. While we have tested them out internally, until they've been included in Beta Releases for awhile we won't really consider them to have received enough "airtime" to be considered ready for inclusion in a new Stable Release. They are also released much more frequently than Stable Releases, generally once every few weeks (instead of once every few months) - if the frequency of update notices annoys you, install a Stable Release instead!

What's New

Here are the major changes since the most recent Beta Release, r404:

Delete gargantuan history.db - If your history.db file is larger than 1.5 times the configured MaxHistorySize value, we'll delete the history.db file instead of attempting to truncate it down to size. This we believe is the cause of some people's issues with PeerBlock "hanging" after first upgrading to e.g. r404; it can take awhile to cut a multi-gigabyte history.db down to size.
Migrate from discontinued lists - The Bluetack Webexploit/Forumspam list has been split into two separate lists, with the original "merged" list no longer being updated; also the CompleteWhois Bogon list was abandoned about a year ago. For each of these lists, if you have one of them configured you'll get a "notification message" on your first run after installing the new version, telling you that we're updating your config to the two new Bluetack Webexploit & Forumspam lists, or from the cw_bogon list to the cidr_bogon list (the most-frequently updated Bogon list, and the one that Bluetack's appears to be based upon).
Better handling of list downloads - We now trap more errors, log more information, change visible status from "Downloading" to "Verifying" when we're checking to make sure a valid list was downloaded, and make a copy of failed-to-load-file type lists to .failed.
Improved error tracing - We now have better tracing of errors in our driver, and added additional code to log info about errors loading them. Hopefully this should mean better debugging output, particularly for XP/2000 driver issues.

Additional minor changes can be found on the r484 Changes page.

Get it Here

This is the latest PeerBlock Beta, labeled "1.0+" since it's a post-1.0 pre-1.1 release. This is the recommended download for most users.

PeerBlock 1.0+ (r484) Installer - (mirror) - for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7 (all editions)

If you're new to PeerBlock, you should consider at least skimming through our online User Manual, especially our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Installation

Just download the above .exe file and run it, and it will take care of everything for you!

The above installer will work fine, regardless of whether you're installing on a "fresh" system or upgrading from a previous Beta (or Stable) Release. If you at some point decide to switch to a Stable Release, you can simply run that installer and it will easily downgrade you. Just remember that if you have PeerBlock running on your machine you'll need to stop it in order for the upgrade install to complete - the installer should remind you of this.

Other Download Options

If you'd rather not use the Installer based version of PeerBlock, you can instead download a "Portable" .zip version. Those files, along with checksum information for all our files if you'd like to verify that your download hasn't been corrupted, can be found on our Other Downloads page.

Almost Party Time!

We're just about set now to release PeerBlock 1.1. And with it, have another "Launch Party" type of thing! When we released PeerBlock 1.0 just over a year ago, we had a little get-together for PeerBlock users in the New York City area - just a little gathering to drink some beer, and hang out with other like-minded people. We had a handful of people show up, and a good time was had by all.

Now we have two orders of magnitude more users . . . which should mean even more users in the NYC area! So if you're interested in getting together for a celebratory drink, getting to know some fellow PeerBlock users, etc., send me (Mark, the lead dev of PeerBlock) an email. Just trying to gauge interest at this point - if we have tons of people expressing interest in stopping by we'll need to make sure we meet up someplace that can accommodate that crowd; or if just a handful of people want to come, our options will be that much more open. If you have any suggestions as to places we could gather, pass them along too!

Thanks!

Thanks again for running one of our Beta Releases, and for all the feedback you've all provided us - good, bad, and indifferent. We sincerely appreciate the time that so many of you have taken to email us, or contact us via our forums, or our Issue Tracker . . . and of course for those of you've been willing and able to donate some money to support the cause.

PeerBlock 1.1 will be released soon. After that, we'll be gutting our code and redesigning pretty much all of it to get it to work much better - start with Windows as a Service, background generation of list cache, background / "silent" list-updates, Mac/Linux versions, a new cross-platform UI, etc. Should be pretty slick!

--- Mark ---