DiskCryptor 1.4.0 is a major release focused on modern platform support, boot infrastructure improvements, and long-term maintainability. This version updates the core driver toolchain to Visual Studio 2022 and aligns the EFI bootloader with the current edk2-stable202511 baseline, ensuring compatibility with modern Windows, UEFI firmware, and contemporary build environments. Legacy 32-bit operating system support has been removed, while ARM64 support has been added to the driver and introduced experimentally for the DCS EFI bootloader, significantly broadening the range of supported hardware.

A key architectural change in this release is the separation of the EFI bootloader files from the main binary. EFI components are now distributed as architecture-specific DcsPkg_[ARCH] packages, either provided as ZIP archives or consumed directly from an existing folder. This makes the boot chain more transparent, easier to audit, and simpler to integrate into custom deployment workflows. Boot data handoff between the EFI bootloader and the driver has also been improved, increasing robustness during early boot.

Secure Boot is now explicitly supported as an optional configuration. DiskCryptor can be used in Secure Boot environments via a separate Secure Boot package that leverages a Debian shim and MOK Key. The software actively verifies whether the bootloader is properly signed and will prevent setup if Secure Boot is enabled but an unsigned loader is detected. This design keeps the default installation path straightforward while offering a standards-compliant Secure Boot solution for users and environments that require it. Additional tooling has been added to inspect Secure Boot state and configuration, and bootloader management from the GUI has been refined, including reliable EFI installation behavior and safer handling of boot manager replacement and restoration.

This release also substantially expands deployment and recovery options. The EFI bootloader can now generate fully bootable EFI ISO images, enabling optical media or virtual media boot without external tooling. PXE boot support has been added, allowing DiskCryptor to be used in network-booted scenarios such as data centers, labs, and automated recovery environments. Offline installation and removal support has been extended to mounted WinPE and install images, making it possible to integrate DiskCryptor directly into deployment pipelines.

Several long-standing issues have been resolved, including a regression affecting MBR encryption in earlier versions. New maintenance commands have been added for managing Microsoft bootloader replacement states, and unused first-boot EFI behavior has been removed to streamline startup.

Overall, DiskCryptor 1.4.0 represents a significant step forward, modernizing the codebase, improving boot and deployment flexibility, and introducing optional Secure Boot support without compromising transparency or control.

Download: https://github.com/DiskCryptor/DiskCryptor/releases/tag/v1.4.0

This release of Sandboxie Plus focuses on stability, compatibility, and overall robustness across a wide range of real-world use cases. Several long-standing and high-impact issues have been resolved, particularly affecting popular applications such as web browsers, email clients, and Microsoft Office, resulting in a smoother and more reliable sandboxing experience.

Application compatibility has been significantly improved. Issues affecting recent versions of Thunderbird have been fixed, Firefox no longer triggers AppModel-Runtime errors in the Windows Event Viewer when run inside a sandbox, and Tor Browser is now stable even when operated at the highest security level. Problems specific to portable and sandboxed browser scenarios were also addressed, including a long-standing issue where Chrome Portable tooltips could become stuck.

System-level stability has been strengthened as well. A critical blue-screen crash in the Sandboxie driver under high GPU process creation load on Windows Server 2022 has been resolved, and crashes that prevented Microsoft Word from functioning correctly due to failures in OfficeClickToRun.exe have been fixed. In addition, Sandboxie now handles software lifecycle operations more efficiently, eliminating prolonged delays when uninstalling or removing applications that were installed exclusively within a sandbox.

Overall, this release prioritizes reliability and correctness in high-security and high-load environments, making Sandboxie Plus safer and more dependable for everyday use as well as professional and server-side deployments.

Download: https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie/releases/tag/v1.16.9

MajorPrivacy 0.99.6 focuses on usability refinements, visibility improvements, and further hardening of core protection mechanisms, alongside several important fixes across all supported architectures.

This release introduces a significantly improved traffic view that now groups entries by primary domain, making network activity easier to interpret at a glance. The program view now persists the primary filter across sessions, reducing repetitive setup during daily use. The access view gains a new status filter, and the global view can optionally display private entries, giving advanced users finer control over what is visible. An extended program information panel has also been added, providing more contextual details without requiring navigation to separate views.

Internally, process map handling has been improved for greater robustness and accuracy, and overall process protection has been further strengthened. The online updater has been reworked to improve reliability and maintainability. In the program view, the cleanup button has been merged with the refresh action to simplify the interface and reduce redundancy.

Several issues have been resolved in this version. A critical crash affecting driver-based process protection on ARM64 systems when interacting with non-native binaries has been fixed. Audio handling for protected processes has been corrected, addressing a long-standing issue. Additionally, file search functionality in the access view window now works as intended.

As part of ongoing UI cleanup, the socket filter button has been removed from the program view. Its functionality is now covered by the Recent Traffic Filter, which includes an “or has sockets” option, providing the same capability in a more consistent way.

Overall, version 0.99.6 continues to polish MajorPrivacy ahead of a stable release, with clearer views, more persistent workflows, and improved stability across platforms.

Download: https://github.com/xanasoft/MajorPrivacy/releases/tag/v0.99.6

TaskExplorer 1.7.1 is a focused maintenance and refinement release that further improves update handling, stability, and process protection. This version introduces a new Sandboxie-style online updater, allowing TaskExplorer to check for and apply updates directly, simplifying maintenance and keeping installations current with minimal user effort.

Several internal behaviors have been refined. The “Reset all Panels” function has been improved to behave more consistently and predictably across complex layouts. Process protection in the KSI driver has also been tightened further; in this release it is intentionally more strict than the protection model used by KSystemInformer. If this increased strictness prevents you from reaching a high security level in your environment, feedback is explicitly requested so the behavior can be evaluated and adjusted if necessary.

An issue where newly downloaded DynData was not applied until after a restart has been resolved, ensuring that updated dynamic data takes effect immediately. Overall, 1.7.1 builds on the 1.7.0 foundation with practical improvements aimed at robustness, security, and smoother day-to-day use.

Download: https://github.com/DavidXanatos/TaskExplorer/releases/tag/v1.7.1

TaskExplorer 1.7.0 introduces one of the most substantial upgrades the application has received in years, modernizing the UI stack, improving driver robustness, expanding cross-architecture compatibility, and adding many new capabilities.
This version replaces the previous helper-process architecture with the newly introduced TaskHelper.exe, which now acts as the dedicated worker and service component. By offloading these responsibilities from TaskExplorer.exe itself, overall stability and responsiveness during privileged operations are significantly improved.

A major focus of this release is the KernelIsolator (KSI) driver. The process-protection logic has been thoroughly redesigned and no longer depends on DynData. This architectural improvement allows a large portion of the driver’s security features to operate even without up-to-date symbol information, increasing reliability across different Windows builds. Additionally, ARM64 compatibility issues that previously caused crashes in the protection layer have been resolved.

The user interface has undergone a notable modernization. TaskExplorer now uses Qt 6.8.3 together with Windows 7 compatibility patches, and the settings interface has been redesigned with sidebar-based navigation and icons instead of simple tabs. DPI scaling options have been added so the application renders correctly on displays of any density. The QWT graphing library has been upgraded to version 6.3, bringing smoother and more reliable charting.

Many new data columns and inspection tools have been added throughout the application. Memory view now includes an “original pages” column. Thread inspection provides the actual base priority, RPC usage, COM flags, and LXSS thread ID. Processes can now display CPU affinity and LXSS PID. Module view shows enclave information such as base address, size, and enclave type. A new window-finder tool allows users to drag a target onto any window to immediately locate its owning process, and the service view now provides a direct “open process” action.

Several behavioral improvements streamline navigation: the handle, module, and memory search windows now allow you to open the corresponding owning process simply by double-clicking a result. Additional security-related metadata has been added to the handle viewer, which has also been moved into its own dedicated section. The “run as” subsystem has been updated for better reliability.

Multiple bugs have been corrected, including a long-standing crash in the handle view, incorrect coloring of token privileges, ARM64 driver protection failures, and a corruption issue in the internal socket-list structures that was causing a memory leak.

With this release, support for 32-bit Windows has been removed, allowing development to focus on modern 64-bit platforms and ensuring the long-term maintainability of the driver and UI codebase.

TaskExplorer 1.7.0 is a major milestone that improves stability, security, performance, and usability across all supported systems, while laying the groundwork for future enhancements.

Download: https://github.com/DavidXanatos/TaskExplorer/releases/tag/v1.7.0

Black Friday Week extended!

Due to the great success of the Black Friday Week, we are extending the discounts through the entire
Cyber Monday Week!
Home and Personal supporter certificates remain 25% off.
Existing users continue to benefit even more: Renewals and Upgrades stay reduced by a full
30%.
If you’ve been considering getting a license or upgrading your setup,
this extended promotion is the perfect opportunity to support ongoing development and unlock advanced features.

Reminder: MajorPrivacy early-adopter offer

A quick reminder that our new security and privacy tool MajorPrivacy is now available.
To celebrate its upcoming first stable release, early adopters still receive a full
50% discount.
Try the latest public BETA, secure the reduced price, and help shape the future of MajorPrivacy with your feedback.

This is a maintenance release, it updates TaskExplorer to the latest PHlib and fixing a few bugs.

Download: https://github.com/DavidXanatos/TaskExplorer/releases/tag/v1.6.6

MajorPrivacy 0.99.5 introduces several usability and security improvements. The settings panel now includes new checkboxes for minimizing the application to the tray and for enabling single-click behavior on the tray icon, allowing users to tailor interaction to their preference. Process rules have been enhanced with parent-child enforcement, providing stricter control over how applications are allowed to spawn and interact. It is now also possible to import and export individual rules as well as enclaves with their associated rules, making backup, migration, and sharing significantly more convenient.

This update relocates the firewall reset action into the service to ensure a more consistent and reliable execution across all privilege levels. Several issues have been resolved, including a failure to run MajorPrivacy as Administrator caused by process protection, and a problem with QtSingleApplication that could lead to multiple instances launching when started from an elevated context.

Download: https://github.com/xanasoft/MajorPrivacy/releases/tag/v0.99.5

This update of Sandboxie-Plus enhances usability across the file panel and configuration interface. The file panel now supports an integrated search and filter function, which can be opened using Ctrl + F, allowing users to quickly locate items within large folder views. Additionally, a dedicated user interface option has been introduced for the ProtectAdminOnly=y/n setting, making this security configuration accessible without manual INI edits.

The release also addresses an issue in the 32-bit SbieDll.dll where SbieApi_QueryDrvInfo could trigger an incorrect certificate warning. This problem has been fully resolved to ensure accurate driver state reporting and eliminate unnecessary alerts.

Download: https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie/releases/tag/v1.16.8

Black Friday Week starts early!

Sandboxie-Plus Black Friday discounts are live starting today.
Home and Personal supporter certificates are now 25% off for a limited time.
Existing users benefit even more: Renewals and Upgrades are reduced by a full 30%.
If you’ve been thinking about getting a license or upgrading your setup,
now is the perfect moment to support ongoing development and unlock advanced features.

New product pre-launch: MajorPrivacy

At the same time, we are excited to announce that our new security and privacy tool
MajorPrivacy is now available for purchase. To celebrate its upcoming first stable release, early adopters receive a full 50% discount.
Get in early, try the latest public BETA, secure the reduced price, and help shape the future of MajorPrivacy with your feedback.