Linux App Release Roundup: May 2025

May saw another sizeable set of Linux app updates, including a big update to system monitor tool Mission Centre and long-awaited version bump to system cleaner BleachBit. We also got new versions of web browsers Mozilla Firefox and Vivaldi; the NordVPN Linux app gained a GUI; and more — but they weren’t the only releases of note. That’s why I do these Linux app release roundups: I like to highlight app updates that didn’t warrant a headline of their own, but are still worth knowing about. As always, if you hear about a notable app update I haven’t covered, tips
#News #AppUpdates #Inkscape #Lrr #Virtualbox

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/06/linux-app-release-roundup-may-2025

Windows Update might begin handling updates for third-party apps soon. Microsoft is inviting developers to join a private preview for a unified app update system that would handle OS, driver, and some app updates in one place. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/introducing-a-unified-future-for-app-updates-on-windows/4416354 #WindowsUpdate #AppUpdates #Windows #Microsoft

Mozilla Firefox 139 Brings Custom New Tab Wallpapers

The new Mozilla Firefox 139 release is rolling out from today and, compared to recent releases of late, it’s far lighter on user-facing changes. Not that every release can, of course. We have been spoiled: Firefox 136 came with vertical tabs, Firefox 137 brought tab grouping and revamped address bar, while last month’s Firefox 138 release debuted a proper profile manager/switcher. By comparison, the headline change in Firefox 139, per its release notes, is full-page translations on extension pages (but only if they start with the moz-extension:// URL scheme). Mozilla say this delivers a “popular request” from users. Elsewhere, Firefox 139
#News #Ai/Ml #AppUpdates #Firefox

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/05/mozilla-firefox-139-released-new-features

NordVPN Linux App Now Has a GUI

NordVPN today announced a major update to its Linux app, adding a much-requested GUI front-end that makes it easier to control, configure and monitor connections. Linux users have been able to use an official, comprehensive command-line interface for NordVPN for many years. Today’s announcement of a graphical user-interface option sees the company widen access to its offerings to Linux users of all experience levels. Now, a Linux GUI is available, providing, NordVPN say, “visually rich elements and ease of use without compromising advanced features. With just a few clicks, users can connect to a server, manage preferences, and monitor their
#News #AppUpdates #Nordvpn #Security #Vpn

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/05/nordvpn-linux-app-update-adds-gui

Linux App Release Roundup (April 2025)

April brought a solid set of software updates to an assortment of different apps. In this post, I run through recent releases that didn’t get the “whole article” treatment on this blog. Sometimes, it’s a challenge to cover everything I want to (especially in an Ubuntu release month, as April was). It also relies on me knowing a new release is out, and in a timely fashion. I track as much as I can, as best as I can. But it’s easy for things to pass under my radar (which is why the new tips you send me through the
#News #AppUpdates #Elgato #Lrr #Qemu #Typhoon

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/04/linux-app-release-roundup-april-2025

Pinta 3.0 Released With New Effects and GTK4 Port

Indulging your casual creativity (read: making memes, defacing selfies, etc) using open-source tools is made easier with the long-awaited release of Pinta 3.0. Pinta, as long-time Linux users will be aware, is a cross-platform raster graphics tool with a feature set and user-interface partly inspired by popular Windows image editing tool Paint.NET. I previewed the Pinta 3.0 beta back in January and came away impressed. Pinta port to GTK4/libadwaita lends the UI a much-needed modern look – and is more than superficial: usability, performance and stability is bolstered by the toolkit bump. Pinta 3.0 switches to a button-based header bar
#News #AppUpdates #Graphic&DesignApps #ImageEditors #Pinta

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/04/pinta-3-0-released-with-new-effects-and-gtk4-port

Inkscape 1.4.1 Brings Snap App Fixes, New Features

Digital artists, designers and vector illustrators among you may be be interested to know that an updated version of open source graphics app Inkscape is out. Inkscape 1.4.1 builds on the giant set of features last year’s release of Inkscape 1.4 brought with it with a number of worthwhile enhancements and bug fixes, plus two new features. When opening Inkscape a new splash screen is shown during loading (it can be disabled) to let users (especially those on older/slower devices) know something is happening since they clicked or tapped on Inkscape icon to open it. The welcome dialog which shows on
#News #AppUpdates #Inkscape

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/04/inkscape-1-4-1-brings-snap-app-fixes-new-features

Calibre Ebook Manager Improves Support for Kobo E-Readers

A new version of Calibre, the Swiss-army knife for e-book management is out, and it brings some notable new features for e-bookworms to dig into. Calibre 8.0.1 boasts improved support for Kobo e-readers, with Calibre now equipped to natively edit, view and convert Kobo’s proprietary KEPUB file format to regular EPUB files for reading on non-Kobo devices and apps (like Calibre itself). Additionally, users of Kobo devices can now use Calibre to convert EPUB to KEPUB automatically when sending books across, saving time and hassle of first converting and then sending. I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard of KEPUB before writing
#News #AppUpdates #Calibre #Ebooks #Kobo

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/calibre-update-convert-kobo-kepub-files

GIMP 3.0

Good things come to those who wait, and heck knows we’ve been waiting a while for GIMP 3.0 to be released — but rejoice: GIMP 3.0 is now available to download. With four years of development bundled up inside, the list of improvements is significant. GIMP 3.0 is front-loaded with major new features, UI changes, and workflow buffs. GIMP 3.0 introduces a GTK 3 UI with native Wayland and HIDPI support, improved tablet/touch input, and a new CSS-based theme system that will enable users to create their own custom themes for the app. Non-destructive editing in GIMP 3.0 is another big change that
#News #AppUpdates #Gimp

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/gimp-3-0

Audacity 3.7.2 Released with Ubuntu AppImage Fix + More

Open source audio editor Audacity has issue a new patch release with a sizeable set of bug fixes, including an appreciable one for Ubuntu users using the official Audacity AppImage. Audacity 3.7.2, the second point update in the currently Audacity 3.7.x series that debuted in October of last year, fixes FFmpeg loading in its official AppImage when run on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (and Linux distributions based on it). Audacity’s noise reduction filter regains its “Residue” option thanks to a community contribution, and no longer screws up pasting content from a clip by offsetting the beginning, and now warns when trying
#News #AppUpdates #Audacity

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/audacity-3-7-2-released-with-ubuntu-appimage-fix-more

Plank Reloaded is a Desktop Dock App for Cinnamon

At one time, Linux dock apps were a plentiful species, with innovative ‘panel painters’ like GNOME Do/Docky to unashamed bling-kings AWN, DockBarX and Cairo Dock. Yet it was the modest Plank which stayed the course and outlived them. Thing is, the Plank dock hasn’t seen any major development for years, and though it still (just about) works, there’s scope for improvement, right? One developer doesn’t just think so: they’ve decided to do something about it. Plank Reloaded: Plank Fork Plank Reloaded is a new fork of the original Plank Linux dock, albeit with a twist: it’s focused on improving compatibility
#News #AppUpdates #Cinnamon #Docks #EyeCandy #Plank

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/plank-reloaded-linux-dock-cinnamon

Clapper Media Player Adds New Features, Official Windows Build

A new version of the slick Clapper media player is out with several neat improvements Not newly new, I should say. I hadn’t run a flatpak update in Ubuntu I an age so I only jus noticed an update pending for this nifty little media player. But I figured I’d write about it since it’s been around 10 months since its last major release (save a bug fix release last summer). So what’s new? Well, Clapper 0.8.0 intros a new libpeas-based plugin system in its underlying Clapper library (which other apps can make use of to playback media, as Mastodon client
#News #AppUpdates #Clapper #MediaPlayers

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/clapper-update-adds-official-windows-builds

Ghostty Update Adds Server-Side Decoration Support on Linux

A new version of Ghostty emerged this week and in this post I run-through the key changes. For those unfamiliar with it, Ghostty is an open-source terminal emulator written in Zig. It offers a “fast, feature-rich, and native” experience — doesn’t claim to be faster, more featured, or go deeper than other native terminals, just offer a competitive combo of the three. Given it does pretty much everything other terminal emulators do, fans faithful to more established terminal emulators won’t find Ghostty‘s presence spooks ’em into switching. It’s a passion project there to be used (or not) depending on need, taste,
#News #AppUpdates #Ghostty #TerminalApps

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/ghostty-update-adds-server-side-decoration-support-on-linux

LibreOffice 25.2 Released, This is What’s New

LibreOffice 25.2 has been released, this year’s first major update to the leading open-source office software for Windows, macOS, and Linux. As you’d expect, the update delivers a sizeable set of changes spread throughout the productivity suite, including notable UI changes, accessibility improvements, and more important interoperability buffs to support cross-suite workflows. It’s always important to remember that software like LibreOffice doesn’t appear out of thing air; it’s made by humans, many unpaid, others working on specific things. LibreOffice 25.2 features 6 months worth of development in total with 47 percent of code commits coming from devs employed by ‘ecosystem
#News #AppUpdates #Libreoffice

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/libreoffice-25-2-released-this-is-whats-new

Varia Download Manager Adds yt-dlp Support

A new version of the Varia download manager was released at the weekend – an update described by its developers as probably the “biggest since the first release”. I’ve written about Varia before and, as I said then, I appreciate that the idea of using a dedicated download manager app on the desktop isn’t as obvious today as it was a decade ago. Most people have fast internet connections, meaning even large downloads complete in seconds, and the built-in download tools in web-browsers are sufficient. Plus, we all tend to use streaming media services these days thus negating the need
#News #AppUpdates #DownloadManager #Varia

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/01/varia-download-manager-adds-yt-dlp-support

VirtualBox Update Adds Support for Linux Kernel 6.13

VirtualBox 7.1.6 is out, the third maintenance release to the VirtualBox 7.1 stable series first released in September of last year. Headline offering in this update is initial support for the recently released Linux kernel 6.13 in Linux Guest Additions, plus improved support for the Linux 6.4 kernel to fix graphics freezing when using VBoxVGA adapter, and Linux 6.12 fixes for vboxvideo. Linux guest screens no longer flicker when using VMSVGA graphics adapters, Windows 11 24H2 guests no longer throw BSODs, and entering a custom proxy server in a guest OSes’ settings does now take effect, which some will be
#News #AppUpdates #VirtualMachines #Virtualbox

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/01/virtualbox-7-1-6-update-changes

Firefox 134 Brings Touch Hold Gestures to Linux, Ecosia Search + More

Mozilla Firefox 134 has landed, making the browser’s first release of the new year. It’s been a month since Firefox 133 delivered time-saving tab overview access, beefed up bounce tracking protection, finessed flaws with Flatpak file opening, and smoothed out issues causing slow DNS lookup/connection timings on 64-bit Linux distributions. Do the changes in Firefox 134 best those? Let’s take a look! Firefox 134: New Features Touch hold gestures on Linux On Linux, Firefox 134 supports touchpad hold gestures. This allows kinetic scrolling to be stopped simply by placing two fingers on the touchpad. If you ever scroll down a lengthy article
#News #AppUpdates #Firefox

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/01/firefox-134-brings-touch-hold-gestures-to-linux-ecosia-search-more

Kdenlive is Adding One of Final Cut Pro’s Best Features

Removing backgrounds from video in Kdenlive, the free, open-source video editor for Linux, macOS and Windows, is about to get a whole lot easier. This “modern background removal tool” uses object masks to automatically cut out the subject of a video clip — no green screen required! Real-time background removal features are increasingly common in video conferencing/chat apps like Slack. They allow a user to replace their actual backdrop (like a messy kitchen) with an alternative image or, sometimes, even a video clip. Video editors often have similar needs: they want to ‘cut out’ an object, item, person, or whatever
#News #Ai/Ml #AppUpdates #Kdenlive #QtApps #VideoEditors

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/kdenlive-automatic-object-masking-feature

VMware Workstation Pro Update Brings Linux Fixes

Broadcom has released updates for VMware Workstation Pro for Windows and Linux, the first to arrive since the software became entirely free to use. Earlier this year, Broadcom made VMware Workstation Pro and its Mac equivalent Fusion Pro free for personal usage, and later for commercial usage. Anyone can download and install VMware’s desktop virtualisation software to use for whatever they want. — Assuming they have the patience to wade through rerouting links, portals, checkboxes, and dense documentation sites to locate the actual download. A blog post from a VMware team member walks through the 11 step (!) process. As
#News #AppUpdates #VirtualMachines #Vmware

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/vmware-workstation-pro-update-linux-fixes

Linux Mastodon App Tuba Adds Post Scheduling, Drafts + More

A new version of Tuba, the open-source Mastodon client for Linux desktops, is out – and it’s a whopper! Tuba 0.9.0 delivers a wide array of new features, enhancements, and general finesse touching nearly every aspect of the client’s top-tier Fediverse experience. Chief among the highlights for is the addition of support for scheduled and draft posts. Posts can be scheduled from the composer, and a list of scheduled (not yet shared) posts can be accessed from a new sidebar entry, where scheduled posts and be edited/amended. With no official draft posts API to use, Tuba instead uses scheduled posts
#News #AppUpdates #Mastodon #Tuba

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/linux-mastodon-client-tuba-update-drafts