Updates

Even death stars have an exhaust vent.

v26.5.403May 5, 2026

Freed Desktop reliability fixes

Native macOS window dragging now works from the FREED wordmark, nearby titlebar gap, passive toolbar title areas, and fullscreen reader titlebar.
Toolbar controls stay clickable because buttons remain explicit no-drag targets while passive titlebar surfaces handle native dragging.
Fix stale renderer recovery restarts.
Recover stale renderers without blocking the macOS main thread while the old main window unregisters.
Let the startup recovery screen scroll in shorter windows so recovery actions stay reachable.
Pause heavy background work before high renderer memory can force repeated recovery.
Retry deferred startup RSS polls instead of waiting for the next normal polling interval.
Batch visible archive actions more aggressively.
Restore Linux release compilation for renderer memory diagnostics.

v26.5.309May 4, 2026

A larger Freed Desktop update focused on relationship views, optional local intelligence, reliable capture, and calmer reading.

Friends graph tools now include ranked suggestions, relationship tiers, shared Friends or All content scoping, and search profile actions.
Optional local AI model packs can be installed from settings to enrich semantic analysis without bundling model weights.
Reading layouts now keep feeds, stories, sidebars, and cards steadier while media and view transitions load.

Startup recovery now waits for healthy renderer heartbeats, records diagnostics, and keeps background work from running into stalled windows.
Social capture is more reliable across Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X, with stronger story dedupe, comment hydration, OAuth, and memory-pressure handling.
Sync and update flows are steadier across Google Drive, Dropbox, mobile pairing, updater channels, outbox persistence, and Automerge state patches.
Provider health, source action menus, graph selection, and graph label checks have stronger Freed Desktop validation coverage.
Cloud media vault setup, Google contacts sync, and local archive handling have clearer settings and safer storage paths.
Read-on-scroll, reader hydration, saved signals, search, map markers, and command state now preserve context more consistently.

Release validation now covers the full primary platform matrix and slimmer Freed Desktop E2E gates.
Website changelog and roadmap presentation will be refreshed from the production tag after the release workflow publishes.
Reverse integration will merge this production release back into dev after updater verification.

Stabilize feed layout, search, and capture cleanup

Deduped duplicate Instagram story captures
Desktop feed scroll layout is now more stable
Freed Desktop startup recovery now waits for healthy renderer heartbeats before running high-risk jobs
Added runtime-health diagnostics for blank renderer reports, including active background work, memory pressure, and recovery attempts
Promote linked accounts without duplicate drafts
Tightened collapsed feed filter menu headings, copy, spacing, and classification selection animation
Floating menus now stay inside the viewport and scroll internally

Friends graph validation now checks structural graph signals instead of provider label text
Friends graph validation now fits the graph before checking visual labels
Friends graph validation now waits for provider labels before checking the visual state
Friends graph and feed perf gates now allow normal CI timing variance
Slim desktop e2e gates
Added fixed-height desktop feed cards and story rows so media loading no longer changes scroll position
Added compact, comfortable, and expansive feed card density controls with matching skeleton heights and bounded internal scrolling for floating menus

AI ranked friend suggestions and a shared friends lens across core views.

Added ranked friend suggestions built from identity graph data, activity signals, contact overlap, and optional local AI content classifications.
Added suggested-friend review surfaces with reasons, sample evidence counts, dismiss controls, and explicit promote or link actions.
Added the Friends and All content lens to the feed toolbar so the map, feed, and friends views share the same scope control.

Preserved paused native local AI downloads more reliably across pause and bookkeeping boundaries.
Fixed the local AI pause regression test typing issue that blocked dev release validation.

Keeps crash recovery, AI downloads, and common desktop actions responsive

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