Changes:

• Harden safety of installer moving the download archive (#2898) (Zorg, Joshua Rogers)
• Don't copy progress tool for root user (#2897) (Zorg, Joshua Rogers)
• Reject package based installs when signing validation failed (#2895) (Zorg)

This release contains a couple of security fixes reported by @MegaManSec including a high-complex symlink security fix, and a privilege escalation fix affecting processes running as root using Sparkle (like running sparkle-cli as root). Details are updated in #2838.

Please also check 2.9.5, 2.9.4, 2.9.3, 2.9.2, 2.9.1, and 2.9.0 for previous changes.

Changes:

• Harden patching delta file against symbolic link at destination path (#2891) (Zorg, Arpit Jain)

This release contains a high-complex symlink security fix reported by @ararpitjain099 (this is a more complete fix to an issue identified in 2.9.2). Details are updated in #2838.

Please also check 2.9.4, 2.9.3, 2.9.2, 2.9.1, and 2.9.0 for previous changes.

Changes:

• Fix backgrounded apps sometimes not bringing windows from user initiated actions in active focus (#2890) (Zorg, wojciech-kulik)

This release contains an activation fix for backgrounded / dockless applications using Sparkle's standard user interface.

Please also check 2.9.3, 2.9.2, 2.9.1, and 2.9.0 for previous changes.

Changes:

• Fix updating not working the first time if the app's bundle ID ends with ".app" (#2882) (Zorg)

This release contains a very specific installation fix for apps that use a bundle identifier ending with .app

Please also check 2.9.2, 2.9.1, and 2.9.0 for previous changes.

Changes:

• Show hidden window title in update window for accessibility (#2871) (Zorg)
• Polish and update Spanish translations to be gender neutral (#2874, #2875) (Emilio P Egido)
• Guard against NULL CFRelease() on failure condition in fallback path (#2867) (Zorg)
• Guard against symlinks when applying delta update files (fe7b718) (Zorg, fg0x0)
• Enforce connection to installer to be validated before receiving appcast item data (#2876, #2877) (Zorg, fg0x0)

This release contains two high-complex security fixes reported by @fg0x0. The details will be posted in the 2.9 discussion.

Please also check 2.9.1 and 2.9.0 for previous changes.

Changes:

• Fix potential crash due to race condition within clearDownloadedUpdate (#2863) (Julian Pscheid)
• Fix generate_appcast failing if feed URL doesn't have lastPathComponent (#2862) (Julian Pscheid)
• Don't let progress status text title string line wrap (#2856) (Zorg)
• Add minimal framework support for building arm64e (#2858, #2860) (Zorg)
• Add SKIP_INSTALL=YES to for XPCServices targets (#2864) (Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia)

Please also check 2.9.0 for previous changes.

Changes:

• Add basic markdown support for release notes (requires macOS 12+) including customizing its presentation (#2810, #2817) (Zorg)
• Add support for signing and verifying appcast feeds (#2822, #2828) (Zorg)
• Add sparkle:hardwareRequirements for enforcing an Apple silicon (arm64) requirement (#2797) (Zorg)
• Add sparkle:minimumUpdateVersion for specifying a minimum version an app needs to be on before upgrading (#2811) (Zorg)
• Add API annotations for Swift concurrency (#2827) (Zorg)
• Validate Obj-C class when reading objects from user defaults / Info plists (#2782) (Zorg)
• Download temporary files in-memory using NSURLSessionDataTask (#2825) (Zorg)
• Allow impatient update check interval to be configured for updates that are downloaded automatically (#2799) (Zorg)
• Probe agent & status service as soon as we launch it to reduce timeout issues (#2852) (Zorg)
• Add allowsAutomaticUpdates property to determine if automatic downloading/installing of updates option should be enabled (#2809) (Zorg)
• Add Vietnamese translation (#2816, #2839) (TranPhuong319)
• Add missing nn language to Installer progress Info.plist (#2818) (Zorg)
• Improve German localization (#2847) (Marco Hillger)
• Find non-canonical Sparkle.framework locations in generate_appcast when creating delta updates to determine compatibility (#2833) (Zorg)
• Make Debug builds of Sparkle use same time interval settings as Release (#2805) (Zorg)
• Remove sparkle-cli from the binary distribution (#2826) (Zorg)
• Make generate_appcast deltas order stable and thread-safe (#2848) (Nathan Manceaux-Panot)
• Fix Xcode 26.4 beta compiler warnings (#2850) (Zorg)

This release adds appcast enhancements such as markdown support and signed feeds.

CocoaPods distribution is now deprecated. Please consider migrating away.

Discussion

Changes since 2.9.0 beta 1:

• Preserve XML whitespace better when signing appcast feed (#2840) (Zorg)
• Expose --disable-signing-warning flag in signing tools (#2841) (Zorg)
• Update Vietnamese translation (#2839) (TranPhuong319)
• Update API documentation for updates checked in background (#2842) (Zorg)
• Fix signature verifier class collisions in unit tests (#2843) (Zorg)

Overall changes to 2.9.0:

• Add basic markdown support for release notes (requires macOS 12+) including customizing its presentation (#2810, #2817) (Zorg)
• Add support for signing and verifying appcast feeds (#2822, #2828) (Zorg)
• Add sparkle:hardwareRequirements for enforcing an Apple silicon (arm64) requirement (#2797) (Zorg)
• Add sparkle:minimumUpdateVersion for specifying a minimum version an app needs to be on before upgrading (#2811) (Zorg)
• Add API annotations for Swift concurrency (#2827) (Zorg)
• Validate Obj-C class when reading objects from user defaults / Info plists (#2782) (Zorg)
• Download temporary files in-memory using NSURLSessionDataTask (#2825) (Zorg)
• Allow impatient update check interval to be configured for updates that are downloaded automatically (#2799) (Zorg)
• Add allowsAutomaticUpdates property to determine if automatic downloading/installing of updates option should be enabled (#2809) (Zorg)
• Add Vietnamese translation (#2816, #2839) (TranPhuong319)
• Add missing nn language to Installer progress Info.plist (#2818) (Zorg)
• Find non-canonical Sparkle.framework locations in generate_appcast when creating delta updates to determine compatibility (#2833) (Zorg)
• Make Debug builds of Sparkle use same time interval settings as Release (#2805) (Zorg)
• Remove sparkle-cli from the binary distribution (#2826) (Zorg)

This release adds appcast enhancements such as markdown support and signed feeds.

CocoaPods distribution is now deprecated. Please consider migrating away.

Discussion

Changes:

• Add basic markdown support for release notes (requires macOS 12+) including customizing its presentation (#2810, #2817) (Zorg)
• Add support for signing and verifying appcast feeds (#2822, #2828) (Zorg)
• Add sparkle:hardwareRequirements for enforcing an Apple silicon (arm64) requirement (#2797) (Zorg)
• Add sparkle:minimumUpdateVersion for specifying a minimum version an app needs to be on before upgrading (#2811) (Zorg)
• Add API annotations for Swift concurrency (#2827) (Zorg)
• Validate Obj-C class when reading objects from user defaults / Info plists (#2782) (Zorg)
• Download temporary files in-memory using NSURLSessionDataTask (#2825) (Zorg)
• Allow impatient update check interval to be configured for updates that are downloaded automatically (#2799) (Zorg)
• Add allowsAutomaticUpdates property to determine if automatic downloading/installing of updates option should be enabled (#2809) (Zorg)
• Add Vietnamese translation (#2816) (TranPhuong319)
• Add missing nn language to Installer progress Info.plist (#2818) (Zorg)
• Find non-canonical Sparkle.framework locations in generate_appcast when creating delta updates to determine compatibility (#2833) (Zorg)
• Make Debug builds of Sparkle use same time interval settings as Release (#2805) (Zorg)
• Remove sparkle-cli from the binary distribution (#2826) (Zorg)

This release adds appcast enhancements such as markdown support and signed feeds.

CocoaPods distribution is now deprecated. Please consider migrating away.

Discussion for Sparkle 2.9 (beta)

On a fun extra note, we have also reached Sparkle's 20 year anniversary.

Changes:

• Enforce RunAtLoad to reduce potential timeout issue when launching updater task (#2795) (Zorg)
• Add missing executable bit permission warnings on connection failure (#2792) (Zorg)
• Add missing localizations to zh-CN & zh-TW (#2789, #2791) (Francis Feng)
• Add documentation note for delegates being weakly referenced (#2802) (Zorg)
• Include app name in startUpdater: failure in SPUStandardUpdaterController (#2780) (Zorg)

Please also check 2.8.0 for previous changes.