Changelog

Added

• Uninstalling removes the app's own leftovers - the elevated sign-in task, staged installers, the brutal:// link handler, our tunnel service and our QoS entries - and offers once to restore demoted services, DNS and Windows security settings.

Fixed

• Undo of the VBS/HVCI module now restores the hypervisor setting your machine actually had, instead of a fixed value that could switch it on where it had been off.
• Re-applying a module no longer overwrites the saved before-state, which had made a later Undo report success while changing nothing.

Changed

• Advanced modules (VBS/HVCI and HPET) load un-ticked on the Optimize page and are confirmed by name before a run applies them.

Security

• Uninstalling no longer leaves an elevated scheduled task behind that a standard user cannot remove.
• Uninstalling no longer leaves an administrator-only folder that you can neither open nor delete.

Download 7.9.5 (57.9 MB)

• Some automatic updates were not being applied. The app would download the update, close itself to install it, and reopen still running the old version. Nothing said anything had gone wrong, so the only way to notice was to check the version number yourself.
• The cause was a timing problem on our side. The app starts the installer and then closes down, but closing down properly can take several seconds - it has to finish what it is doing and shut the Smart Route tunnel cleanly. The installer was not waiting that long, and gave up before it had changed anything. The more you had used Smart Route in a session, the longer the app took to close, and the more likely the update was to be skipped.
• The installer now waits for the app to finish closing before it does anything at all. It also keeps a log of what it did, which it never used to.
• And the app now checks. When it starts up it compares the version it is actually running against the one it last tried to install, and tells you plainly if an update did not take, instead of leaving you to spot it. If we cannot tell either way, it says nothing rather than guessing.

• Smart Route picked relays purely on how fast they answered. That is the right question almost all of the time, and it has one blind spot we hit this week: a relay can be perfectly healthy - connected, fast, carrying traffic - and still be one the game's own servers refuse. When that happens nothing looks wrong from our side, so we kept choosing the same relay every time you connected, and the game kept failing.
• It now remembers. If a routed session ends within a couple of minutes of starting, Smart Route treats that as a sign the route did not do its job and tries a different relay next time you connect. Two such sessions and it steps that relay down for the day. The memory is per game, because a relay that one title refuses is usually fine for every other title, and it fades on its own so a relay that recovers comes straight back into the running with no action from you.
• It never removes a relay from your options - it only changes the order it tries them in. A slightly slower relay that works beats a fast one that does not, and being left with no route at all would be a worse outcome than the problem we are fixing.
• You may see a line in the Smart Route log saying it is trying somewhere else first, and why. As always, the numbers on that page are measured on your own connection and nothing is invented.

Fixed

• Windows PowerShell is no longer allowed to load add-on code from a user-writable folder when the app asks it a question.

Changed

• The identifier used for licensing on PCs where Windows will not report a processor ID is now generated with a cryptographic random number generator. Existing identifiers are unchanged, so nothing needs re-activating.

Security

• The protected folder holding undo files is now locked at every level, not just the innermost one, and refuses to follow a redirect planted in its place.
• Undo files can no longer restore registry values that mean 'run this program', and the app checks the value name and not only its location.
• The key used to sign undo files must be owned by an administrator before it is trusted, and files signed with the older machine-derived key are only accepted during the one upgrade run they exist for.
• Fixed a flaw that let text in an anonymous crash report run code in our internal admin page.
• Smart Route now requires a caller to prove it owns a relay tunnel before it can rebind it, so nobody can take over a tunnel in use.
• An unrecognised device type is no longer treated as a phone, which had allowed the free mobile routing tier to be claimed by something that was not a phone.

Added

• The application and its installer are digitally signed by Arhas India (OPC) Private Limited.

Security

• Updates are verified as signed by us before they are allowed to run, alongside the existing file-fingerprint check.

Added

• Recovery mode - restart with every background job, cleaner, scan, update and self-repair switched off, leaving only Restore Files. Started from a button on the Restore Files page.
• A live count in recovery mode of what has actually been stopped, naming each one.

Changed

• Drive Health is hidden in recovery mode: its Optimize button tells a flash drive to discard free blocks, which is the opposite of what someone recovering a file wants.

Fixed

• Emptied Recycle Bin files were missing from drive scan results entirely.
• Intact iPhone and AVIF photos were reported as damaged video, and were hidden by the Pictures filter.

Changed

• Windows' own internal files are told apart by name, so files emptied from the Recycle Bin are found by a drive scan instead of being skipped.
• A file whose exact type we do not recognise is reported as unknown rather than as damaged.

Added

• Deleted files stored in several pieces on NTFS drives can now be recovered, by following the record of where the pieces are.
• A third place to search: the point-in-time copies Windows keeps, which is the only way here to get back a file that was overwritten rather than deleted.
• Snapshot results say which copy they came from and how long ago it was taken.
• Scan one folder instead of the whole drive, when you know where the file was.

Changed

• Before a file stored in pieces is offered, every piece is checked - inside the drive, matching the recorded size, and not since taken by another file. Any doubt refuses the whole file.

Added

• Search across everything a scan found, including the files that cannot be brought back, by name or by folder.
• The original folder for files found on NTFS drives, shown only when it can be proved.
• Filters for what a file turned out to be and how thoroughly it was checked, plus sorting by date, size or name.
• A Cancel button for drive scans, and a progress figure while one runs.
• The folder chooser names the drives you can and cannot restore to, remembers your last choice, and offers to open the folder afterwards.

Fixed

• A scan that could not read a drive to the end no longer reports the same 'nothing found' as a scan that finished.
• Several cases where the scanner could have offered the wrong data under a real file name.
• Drives larger than 2 TB were losing a safety check that decides whether a deleted file's space has been taken by something else.
• A recovered file could not be written to a folder that secretly pointed back at the drive it came from.
• Restoring now checks the whole file it wrote, not just the first part of it.
• The dashboard fits without scrolling, and the window can never open larger than your screen.
• Selecting thousands of files at once no longer freezes the window.

Changed

• Whole-drive scans are several times faster to read.
• The title bar follows the app's theme instead of the system's pale default.

Fixed

• Restore Files now lists internal drives, so the NTFS and FAT32 support added in 7.6.0 can actually be used on them.
• The dashboard no longer needs scrolling, and the window never opens larger than your screen.
• In the Gold theme, the avatar ring and the boost strip border follow your accent colour instead of staying green.

Changed

• The drive section is named for what it reads - internal drives, memory cards and USB sticks - instead of memory cards only.
• Picking an internal drive explains, before the scan, that an SSD has usually already discarded what you deleted and that a whole drive takes much longer to read than a card.

Added

• The dashboard has an animated edge light in your accent colour, which stops when the dashboard is not on screen.

Changed

• The dashboard no longer repeats the Hardware, Guardian detail, Optimization, Security & Privacy and licence cards below the Guardian ledger, which removes about a screen and a half of scrolling. The top of the dashboard is unchanged.

Removed

• The Disk Cleaner and Drive Health shortcuts on the dashboard. Both features are unchanged and remain in the PC Optimizer section.
• A Defender status query and a registry scan that ran on every dashboard refresh to fill a card that no longer exists.

Added

• Restore Files reads deleted files on NTFS drives, including files small enough that Windows stored them inside their own record - the case that survives most reliably.
• Restore Files reads deleted files on FAT32 drives, and searches inside folders rather than only the top level of the drive.
• A drive that refuses a direct read can now be reached through the physical disk beneath it.

Changed

• A BitLocker-encrypted drive is reported as encrypted rather than as a drive with nothing on it.
• Where a deleted file's name cannot be shown in full - FAT32 overwrites its first letter, and a long name can be partly overwritten by the next file - we say the name is incomplete instead of showing a guess as though it were certain.
• A scan that could not read a drive all the way to the end no longer reports the same "nothing found" as a scan that finished.

Added

• Restore Files can read exFAT memory cards and USB drives, listing deleted files it can show are still whole and copying them to a folder you choose. Read-only on the source, and it refuses to restore onto the same physical disk.
• A file it cannot prove is intact is withheld with the reason, instead of being offered and failing afterwards.
• The accent colour is now a setting - Volt green or gold - independent of light and dark mode.
• Driver rows where a manufacturer driver exists for a device running a Windows generic one are listed as their own category, installable individually.

Fixed

• The driver page's Install button no longer sits there unable to work after a saved scan is loaded. It re-checks with Windows Update and then installs.
• Your light or dark theme choice is remembered between launches. Previously the app returned to dark on every start.
• Driver scans no longer change a Windows Update setting on your machine. Checking for drivers now only reads; the setting it used to write is behind an explicit button that records what it replaced.
• Automatic driver updates could have installed a GeForce display driver offered by Windows Update, even though the setting says graphics drivers from NVIDIA are left to NVIDIA's own app. The check meant to exclude them tested a flag that nothing in the app ever sets, so it never excluded anything. NVIDIA cards are now identified from the hardware id itself.

Changed

• The dashboard uses circular gauges, and the section tabs became a left icon rail. A reading that is unavailable draws as a dotted outline rather than a zero.
• A manufacturer driver offered against a Windows generic one is no longer counted in the update badge, the tray notification or the health score, and is never installed unattended.
• Firmware and storage-controller drivers are never installed unattended, whatever the automatic setting is set to.

Fixed

• GPU hang detection switched off by older versions is now restored automatically. A graphics driver that stops responding is reset by Windows again, instead of leaving the display wrong until a restart.
• The tune-up no longer stops and reverses itself when a module correctly has nothing to do on your PC.
• The interrupt-affinity and MSI modules now find your network adapter. They matched on registry information modern Windows does not write, so they had never made a change on any machine.
• Driver updates from a saved scan no longer offer an Install button that cannot work. The page says the results are saved and asks you to scan again.
• The driver page's guard against offering a manual-only NVIDIA update as installable now applies to the rows you can actually see.

Changed

• Tune-ups no longer switch on Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling. That is your setting in Windows, not ours to change silently, and we could not measure whether it helped you.
• A module that applies a change whose previous value it could not read now stops the run. That state was previously silent, and it is the one case where a change really cannot be undone.

Fixed

• The 100 MHz processor frequency cap written by older versions is cleared automatically, on every power plan. Full CPU speed returns immediately without a restart.
• Module 4 activates a real Ultimate Performance plan instead of a template identifier that always failed, and no longer creates a duplicate power plan on every run.
• The dashboard FPS tile and the overlay HUD say when a reading is the display's refresh ceiling rather than a measurement of the game, instead of labelling it "Smooth".
• The title bar and tray tooltip name the tier you actually hold instead of always saying Pro.

Changed

• Undo entries for power settings must now record the value read back before the write, not the value being written. A build fails if any of them records its own forward command as its reverse.

Fixed

• Boost no longer stops third-party antivirus, firewall or the Windows Security Center service. Thirty-two product names are pinned absent by a test.
• Module 21 no longer writes a CPU scheduling policy that contradicted its own description, and whose undo applied a stronger setting than the apply.
• A system restore point is now created before every driver install, including the Microsoft Update Catalog path that previously skipped it.
• The 1% low and 0.1% low are now the average of the slowest frames, matching how every review site defines them.
• Frame timing no longer records frames as evenly spaced when only their average was measured.
• Page subtitles wrap instead of being clipped mid-word.
• The Disk Analyzer reports how many files it actually scanned instead of always saying '200+', and says so when a scan hit its limit.
• Threat Scan no longer prints a plain severity for a finding that is only a pattern match - and no longer downgrades a genuinely high-severity one either.
• An app-update scan that could not verify anything is no longer recorded as a completed, clean scan.
• A driver scan saved by an older version no longer shows NVIDIA updates as installable.

Changed

• Deep Windows cleanup (DISM component store) is now free for everyone.
• NVIDIA GPU drivers are reported, not installed. Install them from NVIDIA's own app.
• Restoring a file from Defender's quarantine is done in Windows Security. The quarantine list is still shown here.
• Removed the 'update definitions' button - Windows Update already keeps them current.
• Pages that wrap a Windows tool now say so first: Defender, Windows Update, defrag and fsutil.
• The overlay no longer promises that it cannot be flagged by any anti-cheat. It describes what it refuses to do - no injection, no graphics hooks, no kernel driver of ours - and leaves each publisher's rules to them.

Removed

• Guardian engines 7 and 8, which re-enabled Game Mode every three minutes and deleted at most fifty temporary files while you were gaming.

Added

• Startup Manager now includes scheduled tasks that run at sign-in or boot, and services set to start automatically - the two ways most modern software actually starts.
• Startup Manager shows one row per program with every mechanism it uses, and turning it off switches all of them off.
• Startup Manager marks entries that cannot be safely disabled (antivirus, anti-cheat, networking, Windows platform) and warns before disabling a VPN, remote-access or security-token agent.
• Clean Uninstall now scans Program Files and Program Files (x86), behind a live-reference check across uninstall entries, running processes, services, scheduled tasks, shortcuts, pinned items, App Paths, other user accounts and file associations.
• Optional background app updates: opt-in, idle-gated, notified, with a read-back check that the version really moved.
• Guardian now restores the services an optimize run stopped, once the PC is idle.
• Disk Cleaner reports space that was removed but is not back on the drive yet because an app still has the files open, and names the app.

Fixed

• Startup Manager showed the wrong on/off state for some entries because the enabled flag was read as a whole byte instead of a single bit.
• Boost cleared memory and the Windows file cache even on a PC with plenty free, making everything slower for several minutes afterwards.
• Boost stopped SysMain, Windows Search, the print spooler, Delivery Optimization and the Windows Update services and nothing ever restarted them, so search and printing stayed broken until the next restart.
• Boost deleted compiled GPU shader caches, forcing every game to recompile them on its next launch.
• Boost closed the Start menu, search and taskbar host processes, so the first click on Start after a boost stalled.
• Boost disabled Fast Startup, adding 10-30 seconds to every later boot.
• Boost permanently disabled network offload, raising CPU use and lowering throughput on fast connections.
• Boost cleared the file cache immediately before its own disk scan, slowing down the longest part of the run.
• Disk Cleaner reported 0 B freed for browser caches that had in fact been cleared, because the space is only returned when the browser closes.
• Browser cache cleaning skipped the Guest and System profiles and never covered per-extension caches.
• The browser cache description named caches the app had stopped clearing.
• System Health showed "All up to date" for app updates when the check had failed or was unavailable, and still awarded full marks for it.
• The PC Optimizer hub read the wrong folder for applied modules, so it always showed 0 of 22 and "Last tune-up: Never".
• The one-click tune-up reported success for privacy settings that Windows had refused to change, and applied them on the UI thread.
• A driver check could start a driver install during a game.
• The Defender scan gate had a misspelled process name, so it never recognised LDPlayer.
• A dashboard Boost and an Optimize page run could start at the same time and undo each other's changes.

Changed

• Memory cleaning is now gated on the PC actually being short of memory, and says why when it does nothing.
• Boost's confirmation now states what cannot be undone and that some things are rebuilt afterwards.
• Health and hub startup counts only count entries you can actually turn off, with thresholds recalibrated for the wider scan.
• Clean Uninstall says which areas it scanned, and says so plainly when program folders were not examined.

Security

• The background app updater validates package identifiers before passing them to an elevated process.
• Its settings moved to an administrators-only location, since they authorise unattended installation.

Added

• A test that scans this app's own source and fails the build if a Windows tool is launched by name instead of by full path.

Fixed

• Driver installers and driver packages were staged in a user-writable folder and then run as administrator, so another program running as you could have replaced them after they were checked.
• The folder used to unpack driver packages had a predictable name and was not checked before use, which could have been used to write files outside it.
• Windows tools were launched by name rather than full path from an administrator process, letting the folder search order decide which program ran.
• The updater accepted whatever version the server called an update, including an older one than you already have.
• Process Rules displayed 'All cores' for an app whose affinity had been cleared, when clearing it actually left the app pinned.
• Turning efficiency mode off in Process Rules did not turn it off.
• The Renew button on the expiry banner opened the homepage instead of pricing, because in-app checkout is not live yet.
• Drive Health never finished or retried its first scan if you navigated away while it was running.
• The Smart Route game-safety list was refreshed over the network before the terms had been accepted.

Changed

• A release checker on our side now reports when it has been disarmed rather than quietly passing, so a check that stops running cannot look identical to a check that passed.

Security

• Raised the bar for local privilege escalation: administrator-run files are staged where only administrators can write, launched by absolute path, and unpacked into unpredictable, verified folders.

Fixed

• Smart Route kept its route pointed at the previous match's server after the game moved you, and never re-tested against the new one.
• The fallback timing method aimed a TCP connection at a UDP port, so on networks that block ping it wasted twelve seconds and then reported the game server as unreachable.
• The relay list marked a relay live when the app had no record of it ever checking in, contradicting the relay picker's own judgement about the same relay.
• The Smart Route page claimed relay routing is anti-cheat-safe without qualification, which the terms of service do not.
• Route measurements taken against an unconfirmed endpoint were published into the shared route map, where one wrong reading outlives the session that produced it.

Changed

• A re-test after the game changes servers is limited to twice per game per session, because each one costs you a reconnect at a break.
• When a direct path cannot be measured at all, the message names which measurements were tried instead of describing the server as unreachable.

Added

• Ping, frame time and 1% lows in the FPS overlay, each with its own toggle, and each showing a dash rather than a number when there is no game to measure.
• A ping tile on the dashboard, labelled with whether the number came through Smart Route, from a TCP timer, and whether the endpoint is confirmed to be the game's server.
• An optimization receipt built only from values read back out of Windows - registry write-back, timer resolution, the active power plan - so every line can be checked by hand.
• Route receipts can be copied as text or saved as an image, including the runs where Smart Route decided it could not help.
• Search over the support articles from inside the app.
• A sensitivity calculator that converts between games while preserving cm/360.
• Region Watch: when the server you were matched onto is genuinely far away, the app says so - and does nothing else, because helping you reach another region is against the rules of the games you play.
• Restore previous DNS, saved before any change is made and kept across restarts.

Fixed

• The overlay could display a ping of 0 ms that had never been measured.
• Games whose anti-cheat had never been established were treated as having none, which allowed automatic routing on titles nobody had cleared.
• Relay ranking scored 'we have never measured this relay' the same as 'this relay adds no time at all', so an unmeasured relay could beat one that honestly reported a long onward path.
• The route analyzer suggested trying a competitor's free trial at the exact moment it had proven a route problem, instead of offering the relay testing built into this app.
• Free users were locked out of the app on the sixth launch unless they signed in, which contradicts the terms of service.
• The Ultra upgrade prompt led to a page that never mentioned Ultra and quoted the wrong price.

Changed

• Mid-match recovery detects a dead relay path in about 45 seconds rather than up to 3 minutes, and the search for a working path is now time-bounded.
• The checkout button says plainly that in-app purchase is not live yet rather than opening a link that goes nowhere.

Added

• Relays measure their own path to known game servers and publish it, so relay selection can weigh the full journey rather than just the first leg.

Fixed

• Relay selection could pick a relay close to you but poorly connected onward, producing a route slower than your own connection while a better relay went unused.

Fixed

• The stability guard introduced in 7.1.7 was unconditional, so it rejected relays that were substantially faster but slightly less even - the opposite of the outcome it was meant to protect.

Changed

• A relay that is less steady than your direct connection is now refused only when it is not also delivering a real reduction in ping.

Added

• A one-time repair that restarts the network services an earlier version stopped, gated on this app's own record so it never touches a service you disabled yourself.
• Tests that fail the build if any connectivity service or VPN client is ever added back to the process and service cleaner.
• Smart Route now keeps its activity log on disk. It only ever existed on screen, so closing the page threw away the record of what it did and why - which is the first thing anyone needs when a route behaves oddly.

Fixed

• The process and service cleaner stopped WLAN AutoConfig, mobile broadband, the hotspot service, IP Helper, Network Connection Broker and Netlogon, with no check and no way back.
• VPN clients were force-terminated, orphaning kill-switch firewall rules and leaving the machine with no route out.
• The network module reduced TCP data retransmissions from the Windows default of five to three, causing connections to abort instead of recover on lossy links.
• The outgoing port range started at 1025 and so overlapped ports reserved by local listeners, proxies and virtual machines.
• Browser cleanup deleted offline-site caches while keeping the database that indexes them, leaving installed web apps unable to start.

Changed

• When a tune-up stops early, the summary now says what was actually reversed instead of claiming everything was, since ended processes and cleared caches cannot be undone.

Fixed

• Server detection ranked by raw traffic volume with no lower bound, so background QUIC and CDN traffic outranked the game and became "your game server".
• The engaged-route health check measured the relay against a direct baseline frozen at engage time, which made a route engaged on a bad reading unable to revert itself.

Changed

• Detection prefers an address inside the known server ranges for the detected game before falling back to the busiest qualifying flow.

Added

• Groundwork for connect-first routing on verified games, inert behind a server-side switch that is off. It changes nothing for anyone until it is turned on, and it is off for every user in this build.

Fixed

• Re-measuring your direct path while a relay was engaged measured through the relay and presented the result as your ISP's route.
• A Smart Route run deferred to a match break could re-queue itself at that break instead of running, so the deferred test never happened.
• The receipt loss column and the Gaming hub route tile presented a pinned or mid-match-kept relay as a measured win.

Changed

• The Smart Route page now says plainly when a route is engaged but not yet proven, and when your direct path is currently measuring better than the relay - states it previously showed exactly like a route nobody had checked.

Added

• The Advanced-module warning on Settings, Import, matching the one Run All shows. The licence agreement promises a security warning before that module is applied; Import was a path where that was not true.

Fixed

• Export detection scanned the pre-7.1.0 rollback folder, which nothing has written since the store moved to a protected location, so exports carried a frozen module set that Import would then re-apply.
• The dashboard upgrade panel sold free features as paid ones and quoted a monthly price for a plan that does not exist.

Changed

• Renewal reminder emails for auto-renewing subscriptions now state the amount and the date of the upcoming charge and how to stop it, instead of warning that the plan is about to lapse - which was the opposite of what happens on a subscription.
• Wording that promised things we cannot guarantee - "free forever", a permanently locked renewal rate - now says what is actually true.

Added

• A version marker in the terms-acceptance file, so revised terms re-prompt exactly once. Without it the file recorded only ACCEPTED=true and no future rewrite could ever have prompted anyone.

Fixed

• The license agreement said a security warning is shown before the VBS/HVCI module is applied. On the Run All path the per-module acknowledgements are deliberately suppressed and the batch warning did not name those mitigations, so that sentence was not true on that one path. The batch warning now names them.

Changed

• Publisher and copyright metadata across the installer, the About box and the package manifests is now the legal entity rather than the brand alone.
• The Run All confirmation lists the three classes of change it applies, which of them need a restart, and which cannot be undone.

Added

• Regression tests covering the protected-install trust check, which had none before - this is why the fault reached two releases.

Fixed

• The protected-install check used a permissions mask that also matched read-only access, so it treated the standard read-only entry every Program Files folder carries as if it granted write access and rejected every real installation. "Start with Windows" can be enabled again.
• First launch after an upgrade no longer deletes an existing startup task - the same faulty check made the self-heal step treat every correctly installed copy as untrusted.
• Vendor GPU monitoring libraries installed under Program Files can load again; the Windows system folder path was never affected.

Fixed

• Rollback records written by earlier versions are migrated into the protected store on first launch, so per-module Undo and Restore All keep working across the 7.1.0 upgrade.
• Undo no longer refuses an entire module because one of its reverse steps is not recognised - the remaining registry and command steps are applied and the record is kept.
• Restored the two boot-timer reverse steps that older builds recorded for the Timer Resolution module, which the stricter 7.1.0 safety check had rejected.
• Saved settings-file copies (Discord, Spotify) are carried across with their module records, so file restores are not left pointing at a missing file.

Added

• Atomic Durable Object coordinators for OTP verification, security rate limits, per-relay credentials and GPN tunnel/flow allocation.
• Protected ProgramData storage and strict allowlists for signed rollback manifests, update installers and privileged Windows tools.
• Exact publisher name and certificate thumbprint verification for production updates and vendor GPU libraries.

Fixed

• Stopped rollback manifests from authorizing arbitrary registry, file or command operations.
• Closed update installer path and launch-time verification gaps, unsafe elevated startup targets and relay allocation races.
• Fixed Extreme Mode continuing after its optimization pipeline had already failed.
• Fixed admin rich-preview script execution and token persistence risks with sandboxed, no-network previews.
• Expanded emulator process detection and corrected emulator CPU, RAM and FPS recommendations so they leave Windows headroom and make no FPS guarantee.
• Undo history written by earlier versions keeps working after this update: existing rollback manifests are re-signed with the new protected key instead of being rejected as tampered.
• PC game detection no longer goes blank for anti-cheat-protected titles, so the FPS overlay, Hardware Monitor and Smart Route keep reporting a running game.
• A Smart Route add-on that is still paid up now keeps working after the base Pro subscription lapses, as intended.

Changed

• Smart Optimize now confirms the module count and how many are flagged Caution before it runs; the tier-aware selection itself is unchanged.
• Caution and Advanced optimizations disclose their system, security, heat, battery and stability trade-offs and require explicit opt-in.
• The hook-free FPS overlay and Intel sensor limitations are disclosed in the app.
• If Windows cannot create a restore point (System Restore is off on many PCs), optimization now says so and continues using each module's own signed Undo, instead of silently doing nothing.

Security

• Shared static admin authentication is permanently retired in favor of Google identity plus Turnstile.
• Crash ingest quotas, request body limits, security headers and no-store policies now fail closed.
• Rollback manifests are signed with a random Administrators-only key instead of one derived from machine identifiers, and only a strict allowlist of registry, file and command operations can be restored.
• Emergency update and download pause switches, so a suspect release can be pulled from distribution without a deploy.

Removed

• Removed the incomplete Doublecast activation path from shipping behavior until its carrier ingress datapath is complete.
• Removed fleet-wide relay bearer authentication from normal relay operation.

Added

• The 'Needs you' panel now shows an 'Also checked' list - the things that were looked at and came back clean, each with when it was checked. Anything never checked says so plainly rather than showing a green tick.

Changed

• Tune up, Aggressive and Extreme now sit side by side, roughly halving the height of the top band.
• The Guardian log and Top memory users share a single row instead of one full-width panel each, so more of the dashboard is visible without scrolling.

Added

• A Guardian activity log on the dashboard showing the last few things the background service actually did.
• PC Optimizer now ranks tools by whether they need a decision, with the reason shown on each one.
• Gaming has a live mode: while a game or emulator runs it shows FPS with 1% lows, the engaged route, the applied profile and Guardian's activity.
• Security leads with who owns real-time protection on your PC, and each check shows when it was last verified.

Fixed

• The app no longer shows a green 'all clear' for checks that have never actually run - it now says plainly that nothing has been checked yet.
• Status chips that used to read 'Scan in Cleaner' or 'Test in Network' now show the real measured value, or state honestly that it has not been measured.

Changed

• Redesigned dashboard: a plain-language verdict, a compact live metric strip with more detail in less space, a readiness score that names what is holding it back, and a Guardian log.
• Aggressive and Extreme are now presented as deeper steps beneath the recommended one-click tune-up, each labelled with its real cost, instead of three buttons of equal weight.
• Smart Route now reads as the Ultra feature it is, in gold rather than green, and the top tabs can show when something needs you or when a game is running.

Fixed

• The GPU usage reading in Hardware Monitor now shows a real value on AMD and Intel graphics instead of staying stuck at 0%.
• The Settings page and the Security page no longer freeze briefly on some visits while they gathered status in the background.

Changed

• Much smaller download and faster startup: removed the decorative page-background artwork (a large part of the download that was decoded on every launch) in favour of a clean solid backdrop, and moved several startup and per-page tasks off the paths that made the app feel slow to open or switch pages.
• One-click Boost and the Aggressive/Extreme tune-ups finish faster - they no longer re-scan and re-enumerate work they had already done.
• The live dashboard now pauses its updates while the app is minimized to the tray, so it uses less power in the background.
• Network diagnostics (route analysis, ping test) return faster by no longer waiting on servers that never answer.

Removed

• Removed the built-in page-background artwork and its decode/caching machinery.

Added

• Route Receipts now attribute packet loss: 'routing cut it' when a relay demonstrably reduced loss on the path, or 'your connection or the game server' when a relay was tried and couldn't clear it (loss no route can fix). Shown only when the measured data supports the claim.

Fixed

• Smart Route no longer changes your route in the middle of a match. Measuring, switching to a faster relay, and stepping back all now wait for a break between matches, so a route change can never disconnect your game mid-match.

Changed

• A relay that truly fails mid-match still fails your connection straight back to your direct route immediately (a dead connection is worse than waiting) - only the discretionary route changes wait for a match break.

Fixed

• The 'restore my previous DNS' step now falls back to automatic DNS if the saved value is anything other than valid IP addresses, instead of trusting the file's contents.

Security

• Hardened the elevated DNS-restore path in both the ad-blocking and encrypted-DNS services: the previous-DNS value read back from a user-writable file is now strictly validated as IP addresses and only its canonical form is used, so a tampered file can no longer inject a command into the administrator-level call (local privilege-escalation hardening). Only validated IPs are written to that file.

Added

• Opt-in crash reporting: an ask-first-every-time dialog (with a 'View the exact report' preview) that lets you send a crash report so we can fix the bug. Choices are remembered; 'Never' sends nothing and purges pending reports.
• A Diagnostics section in Settings: crash-report preference, a separate on/off switch for anonymous version beacons, a 'view your crash log' button, and a 'Report a problem' bug-report form with an exact-bundle preview.
• Crash reports carry file:line locations now (previous builds had none), so a report actually points us at the code that failed.

Fixed

• Faulted background tasks that used to disappear without a trace are now recorded in the crash log.
• The anonymous version beacon can finally be turned off (Settings -> Diagnostics), and the privacy policy now honestly lists what it sends (only the app version).

Changed

• Uncatchable crashes (the kind that leave no error message) now leave a small local diagnostic file the app can offer to send, with your permission - the last missing piece of crash visibility.
• The privacy policy is a full, plain-language disclosure of every network call the app makes.

Added

• Unclean-exit detection: the app records each session and, if one ended without a clean shutdown, reports it on the next launch (in the crash log and the in-app Guardian log) along with the version it happened on. Deliberate exits - like an update restart or a Windows shutdown - are recorded as such and never reported as crashes.
• A one-time, logged repair of Windows Error Reporting on machines an earlier build disabled it on.

Fixed

• System Debloat (Module 15) disabled Windows Error Reporting machine-wide, which stopped Windows logging crash details for every application on the PC. It now only suppresses the crash popup and leaves the recorder running. Verified against a real crash: the crash records Windows should write are being written again.
• The Privacy Center 'Windows Error Reporting' switch had the same side effect, and because it was not marked as a caution item, every Boost applied it automatically - silently undoing the fix above on each run. It now stops reports being sent to Microsoft without switching off local crash logging, which is what its description always promised.
• Automatic updates appeared to make the app vanish: it announced the restart with an in-window message that is invisible while minimized to the tray, then closed for as long as the installer took. It now raises a proper notification first and explains that it will reopen by itself.
• Crashes that happened while the app was closing were never written to the crash log at all - the log was skipped during shutdown. They are now always recorded (the error popup is still suppressed at that point, since the app is already closing).
• A rare startup failure - an unwritable app-data folder, for example on a redirected or full drive - could leave the app running with no window and unable to be started again at all, because it still held its single-instance lock. That path is now guarded.
• A driver catalog download could silently fail for the rest of the session if its folder was missing.

Changed

• System Debloat's tweak count is now 35 (it no longer makes the three error-reporting changes).

Added

• An upfront entitlement strip on the Smart Routing page for Free-tier users: what is free (measuring, receipts, fleet), what needs Ultra (engaging a relay), and a Get Ultra button - shown before any button is pressed, cleared automatically the moment a license is activated.

Fixed

• The Smart Routing section displayed a 216px sidebar containing a single item, squeezing the page content; single-page sections now use the full window width (same treatment the Dashboard already had).

Added

• A shared background GPU-usage sampler: one measurement per second feeds the dashboard, Hardware Monitor and the FPS overlay, replacing dozens of per-second reads on the interface thread.

Fixed

• Startup froze before the window became usable: the dashboard was built only after hardware detection, an online license check (up to 10 seconds on a bad network) and several background scans. It now paints first and the rest fills in live.
• First clicks into Hardware Monitor, App Updates, Startup Manager, Process Rules, Drivers, Disk Analyzer and Optimize froze the window while they read sensors, spawned winget, resolved shortcuts, enumerated processes or parsed files - all of that now runs in the background with honest placeholders.
• Leaving the Smart Routing tab could freeze the app for up to 1.5 seconds while the network-detection session shut down; entering it paid a similar cost. Both now happen in the background, in strict order, so fast tab switching stays safe.
• The dashboard's 1-second refresh performed heavy GPU counter reads and a full process walk on the interface thread, making the whole app feel sluggish while the Home page was visible - and the FPS overlay repeated the same cost during games.
• Cache cleaning (Module 2 and the Disk Cleaner) deleted the .NET single-file launch cache and wiped Windows Prefetch, causing a first-run-style slow start of this app (and slower cold starts generally) after every clean. Both now leave launch data alone; Prefetch cleaning remains available as an explicit Caution option in the Disk Cleaner.
• Navigating between page groups decoded large background images on the interface thread on first visit; they now decode in the background and pre-warm after startup.
• The Game Library realized the entire ~700-title catalog on every filter click because its list virtualization was defeated; filtering is now instant.
• Hardware detection ran duplicate system queries (the video controller and CPU were each queried twice); merged - detection is faster with identical results.
• On machines with a degraded Windows WMI database, the app generated a different fallback machine ID on every launch, which could repeatedly un-bind a Pro license. The fallback is now minted once and reused.

Changed

• The app binary is stored uncompressed for memory-mapped, lazily-paged startup (roughly 200-500 ms faster cold start, including logon autostart). The installer download stays a similar size; the on-disk installation grows.
• Guardian, update checks, announcements and the overlay hotkey now initialize in a background startup phase after the dashboard is visible, in the same order as before.
• The always-on glow animations in the top bar were rebuilt without live blur effects and now pause entirely while the window is hidden or in the tray.

Added

• Anonymous release-health beacons: one 'launched OK' ping per version per day, and an 'update failed' report when a download can't be verified. The payload is the bare version string over HTTPS - no machine ID, no license key, no personal data. A version with a high failure rate now halts its own rollout automatically.

Fixed

• The Ultra tier displayed as 'PRO ACTIVE' everywhere (License page, Home, Settings, sidebar badge) even though the entitlement was active. All surfaces now show ULTRA.
• The Ultra/Smart Route entitlement was not stored in the local license cache, so every restart dropped it until the next online verification - and a fully offline start lost it for the whole session. It is now cached and expires from its real end date, never from a stale flag.

Added

• Background attention checks (free): Guardian now checks installed apps for updates every 8 hours and measures safe reclaimable junk once a day - both read-only, both skipped while a game runs - feeding a new 'Needs your attention' card on Home and count badges on the sidebar nav.
• Windows tray notifications with click-to-open routing: a new app version (once per version; a required update reminds daily until installed), app updates found, driver updates found, license renewal and grace reminders, and 1 GB or more of reclaimable junk. Master and per-category switches live in Settings; nothing is ever shown while a game is running.
• The App Updates page opens instantly on the last scan ('checked 2h ago') and the count survives a restart, instead of starting blank until a manual scan.
• A Route Receipts ledger with a lifetime balance strip (measured milliseconds saved, proven wins, and direct holds), a bank-statement row per session, and 'direct held' / 'blocked' kept as first-class receipts - written only when a relay was genuinely tunnel-tested and lost, or a kill-switch provably blocked the test.

Fixed

• Aggressive/Extreme stutter and audio problems: removed or corrected the tweaks that backfire - the CPU pinned at 100% minimum clock (heat-soak throttling, worst on laptops), Prefetch disabled, GPU and network interrupts concentrated onto shared cores, GPU preemption and the display watchdog disabled, a forced platform timer tick, Bluetooth audio services terminated (headset crackle), audio scheduled below games, and USB double-buffering disabled.
• Optimizing no longer purges memory while a game or emulator is running: it emptied every process's working set, including the running game's, causing a guaranteed one-off hitch and texture pop-in the moment you pressed Boost.
• Laptops: the thermally-aggressive modules (Timer+Power, Interrupt Affinity, USB polling, Hybrid CPU) are auto-skipped from Aggressive and Smart runs on portables, because pinning clocks on thin cooling causes throttle-stutter. They remain available as individual switches on the Optimize page.
• A failed app-update check can no longer overwrite the last good 'updates available' count with a false zero - the honest 'couldn't check' handling now also protects the saved count, the Home card, and the sidebar badge.
• License renewal state now re-evaluates during long sessions: a resident tray app previously showed a grace-period reminder exactly once per launch, so Pro could silently expire days later without a word.
• The Smart Routing page no longer spends its space announcing emptiness; when idle it shows your live fleet and your kept proof instead of blank dashes.

Changed

• Module tuning rebalanced to keep the wins and lose the side effects: audio scheduling priority raised, the system's responsiveness reserve restored, desktop minimum clock at 50% instead of 100%, and interrupt tuning now touches only the network adapter.
• The Smart Routing page is proof-first: receipts and your balance lead the layout, and the single primary action appears only when there is something to press - it hides while a measurement runs.
• Routine 'direct held' and 'blocked' entries can never evict a genuine win from your kept receipts, so your saved-milliseconds total stays honest over time.

Added

• A Route Receipts ledger with a lifetime balance strip (measured milliseconds saved, proven wins, and direct holds), a bank-statement row per session, and a first-run specimen row so a new install is never a blank screen or a fake history.
• 'Direct held' and 'blocked' outcomes are now recorded as first-class, kept receipts - written only when a relay was genuinely tunnel-tested and lost, or a local kill-switch provably blocked the test - so the times Smart Route correctly did nothing are kept as proof too.

Fixed

• The Smart Routing page no longer spends its space announcing emptiness; when idle it shows your live fleet and your kept proof instead of blank dashes and dead readouts.

Changed

• The Smart Routing page was reorganized into a proof-first layout: the receipts ledger and your account balance lead, with the live readout, decision log, and full relay fleet alongside. Auto Smart Route and Slipstream now sit directly beneath the receipts.
• The single primary action is shown only when the readout is idle and there is something to do; it is hidden while a route is being measured.
• Routine 'direct held' and 'blocked' entries can never evict a genuine win from your kept receipts, so your saved-milliseconds total stays honest over time.

Added

• A scored connection engine that judges the full quality of your route - latency, latency spikes, jitter, and super-linear packet loss - in one honest measure, and auto-selects a competitive or casual weighting from the detected game, with no toggle to set.

Fixed

• Smart Route could, in a rare timing window, end up 'engaged' while routing nothing (a stale health check colliding with a fresh engage); the health monitor is now fully serialized so that cannot happen.
• A single noisy measurement (one stray dropped probe) could revert a relay that was genuinely still winning; the monitor now re-confirms before reverting and measures at a consistent resolution.
• A relay you pinned that measured slower could be labeled a 'measured win' on the dashboard; a forced pin is now shown honestly as your own choice, not a measured success.
• After a match moved to a new server, the traffic-based server detection could stay locked onto the old, near-idle server; it now ranks by recent traffic so it follows your live match.

Changed

• Engaging and holding a relay now use the exact same scored objective - with stronger proof required to engage than to keep holding - so decisions are consistent and never churn on noise.
• Relay testing now probes all relays at once instead of one at a time, so testing and re-routing are faster.
• A relay tunnel's teardown is now verified to have actually completed, and an abandoned relay seat is reclaimed within the hour instead of lingering for weeks.

Security

• A mid-session switch to a kernel anti-cheat title is never auto-routed on your previous game's consent - Smart Route reverts and asks again, keeping a datacenter relay IP away from an anti-cheat that could flag your account.
• Any game can be pulled from automatic routing from the server side instantly, reaching even built-in titles, so a newly discovered risk no longer waits for an app update.

Added

• Slipstream Living Route Map: the app contributes anonymous route measurements (ASN + region keyed, no PII) and asks the fleet which relay is likely fastest for the current game server before testing, hoisting that relay to be tested first.
• A 'Slipstream' opt-in toggle on the Smart Routing page (on by default) with a plain-language explanation of exactly what is and isn't shared.

Changed

• Prediction only reorders which relay is tested first and grants one extra test when it hoists a relay, so a wrong or stale prediction can never skip a better relay or engage a slower one - Smart Route still measures and confirms every route it uses.

Added

• Route Receipts (Slipstream Phase 0): a persistent, honest record of every engaged Smart Route session, shown on the Smart Routing page with a cumulative 'proven / ms saved' tally. Kept in a local receipts file across sessions.

Changed

• Route Receipt wording is framed by WHY the relay won (latency / packet loss / jitter), so it never shows a fabricated millisecond saving on a loss or jitter win, and a knowingly-slower forced relay is not presented as a success. Each receipt records exactly one match server.

Added

• Startup Manager enumerates packaged StartupTask apps (MSIX/Store and modern apps) from the AppModel state store - the source Task Manager uses for these - and can enable/disable them by writing their startup State.

Fixed

• Newly installed Store/modern apps that auto-start were not shown in Startup Manager because it only read classic Run keys and Startup folders; packaged StartupTasks are now a first-class source.
• Smart Routing nav tab glow now renders as a layered halo (bright core + soft falloff, slow eased breathing) with a readable label instead of a flat green box, and the flame badge sits inline beside the label rather than floating above the corner.

Changed

• Startup Manager intentionally treats the StartupApproved keys as an on/off overlay only, not a list source, so it never surfaces residual records for uninstalled apps.

Fixed

• The Smart Routing nav flame was overlaid at the tab's top-right corner with negative margins, reading as a misaligned superscript; it is now inline beside the label, vertically centered.

Changed

• Smart Routing nav tab sits in a soft accent pill with a gentle pulsing glow (new-feature emphasis).

Added

• Route board with honest topology: relay node off-path when direct, in-path with per-leg latencies (measured leg + derived leg marked with ~) while testing/engaged, packet-flow animation only when traffic actually flows.
• Idle relay pings: each relay row shows the live you-to-relay ping (4 probes every ~30s while the page is open, 2-minute freshness window, cleared when a relay stops answering).
• Returning to the page while a relay is engaged now restores the full comparison (numbers, savings, per-leg latencies) instead of an empty panel - including engagements made by Auto Smart Route while the page was closed.

Fixed

• After the match moved to a new server mid-engagement, the page kept showing every number from the old server; it now re-baselines honestly and marks the relayed figures as pending re-measure.
• Stopping a relay left the relayed ping/jitter/loss displayed as if they were your direct-path stats; both stop paths now reset and re-measure the direct route.
• The Ultra upsell, per-game blocked notice, and test-error messages were wiped by the page's 2-second refresh before they could be read; they now stay until you act.
• The 'Engage pinned anyway' button could linger after its context was gone and silently do nothing.
• Switching directly between two games kept the previous game's test result on screen when the new game's server was TCP-detected.

Changed

• Smart Route page identity moved off red (reserved for Danger) to the cyan measurement hue; ULTRA/BETA badges kept, HOT flame retired; Smart Route toggles recolored to match in both themes.
• 'Blocked on this PC' labels are strictly evidence-gated: they appear only when the relay tunnel provably connected (WireGuard handshake) and the probes died locally - a full relay or a failed tunnel is never blamed on your VPN.

Added

• VPN interference detection (VpnDetector): Smart Route names an active third-party VPN, warns on the Smart Routing page, and attributes blocked relay tests to it only when the WireGuard handshake proves the tunnel itself connected.
• Guardian now runs a free detection-only mode for everyone (game/emulator detection, FPS gates, overlay auto-show); all optimization engines stay Pro and are re-checked every cycle, so activating a license upgrades Guardian without a restart.

Fixed

• FPS counter showed unrealistic values (up to 700-1200): it divided the display present-counter delta by an assumed 1 second while game-starved UI timers fired seconds late, and the underlying counter counts flip events (including overlay planes) rather than frames. FPS is now normalized over measured elapsed time and clamped to the fastest connected display's refresh rate.
• Hardware Monitor could fabricate 2000+ FPS spikes from queued-flip bursts and served stale stats after a game stopped presenting; it now rejects burst artifacts, keeps FPS/frametime/1% lows in consistent per-frame units, and age-gates its data.
• Smart Route reported relays as 'unreachable' when a local VPN kill switch was dropping the probes on the user's own PC; the relay list now distinguishes 'blocked on this PC' from a genuinely dead relay.
• Smart Route's hero card kept displaying a result measured against a previous match server after server rotation.
• FPS counter could pin at 0 permanently on hybrid-GPU laptops after a display MUX switch; it now fails over to the adapter whose counter is actually advancing.
• A mid-session license downgrade now still restores demoted app priorities and reverted services within one Guardian cycle.

Changed

• Guardian status surfaces (dashboard, Gaming hub, Guardian page, tray balloon) are tier-aware: free installs show 'MONITORING / detection only' instead of claiming active protection.
• Process Rules page states plainly on the free tier that saved rules are kept but only auto-applied with Pro.

Fixed

• Auto-update reaching 100% no longer leaves the app running with the update un-applied. All update paths (automatic, the required-update banner, and Settings) now fully close the app so the in-place installer can replace it and relaunch the new version, instead of relying on Windows Restart Manager (which the app's minimize-to-tray behavior was intercepting).

Changed

• Widened the post-update relaunch handoff window so a slow-but-clean shutdown (Guardian and Smart Route teardown) can never leave nothing running after an update.

Added

• Full hand-tuned profiles for 14 more top online games (Deadlock, The First Descendant, Throne and Liberty, Once Human, Palworld, Sea of Thieves, War Thunder, World of Tanks, EA Sports FC 26, Gray Zone Warfare, Squad, Hell Let Loose, Smite 2, Enlisted) - per-game Windows tuning + in-game settings + verified anti-cheat safety.

Fixed

• In-app prices (the Get Pro button and the upgrade teaser) now localize by region - USD outside India, INR in India - matching the website instead of always showing rupees.

Changed

• The Game Library is now search-first: a lean default (supported titles + your running game) with instant search across the whole catalog, instead of loading the entire list.

Security

• Each new title's anti-cheat class was individually verified before shipping; kernel anti-cheat games remain manual-only for Smart Route (never auto-routed).

Added

• Game Library: a searchable, catalog-driven browser of every recognized game with per-title anti-cheat safety class, Smart Route policy, and (for supported titles) one-click per-game Windows tuning + in-game settings guidance. The running game is surfaced at the top.
• A unified, server-driven game catalog behind the whole app - hundreds of classified titles, growable without an app update.

Changed

• Smart Route's per-game policy is now served from the unified catalog, so coverage and safety classifications update without an app release.

Security

• Auto Smart Route stays reserved for titles verified to use server-side anti-cheat; kernel anti-cheat titles (and any not-yet-verified title) are manual-only with explicit consent - fail-safe by default.

Added

• Auto Smart Route: an opt-in, per-game auto-switch that detects your game, measures your route, engages a relay only when it is genuinely faster, and reverts automatically when the game closes. Only titles with server-side anti-cheat can auto-engage.
• Guarded-after-engage health monitor: verifies the WireGuard handshake and real traffic, re-scopes the tunnel live when your match server changes, re-measures the route every 90 seconds, and reverts by itself (with the reason shown) when the relay stops helping.
• Per-game safety badges and a server-updatable game directory: kernel anti-cheat titles are manual-only with an explicit warning; verified server-side anti-cheat titles can auto-engage; new titles can be added without an app update.
• An activity feed and a live health strip on the Smart Routing tab, plus the ability to pin a specific relay per game (still measured honestly).

Fixed

• Smart Route no longer shows an 'engaged' state that could route nothing after a match-server change; it re-routes to the new server or reverts honestly.
• The relay test no longer pulls your live game traffic through relays that lose; it ranks by ping and only tunnel-tests the best candidate.
• Direct and relayed paths are now always compared with the same measurement method, so the before/after numbers are apples-to-apples.

Changed

• WireGuard is now bundled in the installer and installed silently when missing - no separate download.
• Redesigned the Smart Routing tab with a bold red theme, a hot-feature marker, a live ping trend, and a clearer, more visual layout.
• Ultra pricing simplified; the 6-month option was removed. (Since changed: Ultra is now ₹899 a year, the only Ultra plan.)

Security

• The bundled WireGuard installer is verified as officially signed by WireGuard LLC before it is ever run, and the in-app install downloads only from the official host with a matching checksum.
• Kernel anti-cheat game titles are excluded from automatic routing and require explicit consent; Smart Route generates its keys on your device (now stored encrypted) and the private key never leaves your PC.
• The tunnel is fully torn down on every exit path, so a relay tunnel never keeps running after you close the app.

Added

• The Smart Route tab previews the live relay network (Singapore, Mumbai) as soon as it opens, and fills in your direct ping and route quality live once a game server is detected.

Changed

• Redesigned the Smart Route tab: the route map and the direct-vs-relay before/after are now the always-visible centerpiece (previously they appeared only after running a relay test), so the page no longer looks empty when no game is running.

Added

• Smart Route (beta): a selective WireGuard relay for game traffic that engages only when it measures a real improvement over your direct route, and reverts to direct when it can't help.
• A dedicated Smart Routing section: live game-server detection, a direct-vs-relay before/after measurement, intelligent relay auto-selection by measured round-trip, and live route quality (ping, jitter, packet loss).
• New Ultra plan - everything in Pro plus Smart Route. During the beta, Smart Route was free for every Pro user; the beta has ended and Smart Route is now part of Ultra only.
• Relay network in Singapore and Mumbai to start, with automatic nearest-relay selection; more points of presence are planned.

Changed

• Pricing now has three tiers: Free, Pro, and Ultra (Pro + Smart Route).

Security

• Smart Route generates its keys on your device - the private key never leaves your PC. It routes only gameplay-server traffic, never authentication or anti-cheat handshakes, and excludes kernel-anti-cheat titles from automatic engagement.

Fixed

• Stricter input validation: DNS restore values and driver-download filenames are now strictly validated before use, and renew/upgrade links open only to trusted hosts.

Security

• Separated the app's licensing credential from the backend administrative credential and rotated keys, so the desktop app no longer carries anything more than a least-privilege token.
• Backend hardening: added replay protection to the payment webhook, stricter request validation on license operations, and tighter sanitization of published content.

Added

• Guardian recognizes the running emulator game from the emulator's window title, so its runtime boost engages on the first run without you having to apply a game profile first. Read-only and anti-cheat-safe (no hooks or injection).
• Crash recovery: if the app is force-closed while gaming, any Windows services Guardian had paused are restarted automatically on the next launch.

Fixed

• Guardian no longer terminates your communication apps (Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp), OneDrive, or Windows crash reporting when a game starts. The heavy ones are gently de-prioritized and fully restored afterwards instead.
• Quitting the app mid-game now restores everything Guardian changed - paused services, de-prioritized background apps, and native tuning - on every exit path, instead of leaving some of them degraded until you restarted each one.
• Removed two over-broad game-detection patterns that could mis-fire optimizations against an idle emulator.
• Reliability fixes: a last-checked timestamp that could fail to parse in non-US regions, the background log keeping fewer lines than intended, and safer restoration of de-prioritized apps.

Changed

• Guardian's status reporting is more accurate, and its documentation now reflects all 16 of its background engines.

Security

• The Integrity Audit's persistence baseline now also detects an EXISTING startup entry whose command was overwritten, not only newly-added entries (a common malware tactic), while still storing only a one-way fingerprint and never your paths or values.

Fixed

• The app now reliably relaunches itself after a silent in-place update. The freshly-updated app could start while the previous instance was still shutting down, see the single-instance lock as still held, and exit immediately, leaving nothing running until a manual restart. It now waits for the old instance to release the lock and takes over.
• Emulator detection now reads each emulator's registry-recorded install path (GameLoop, BlueStacks, LDPlayer), so installs on a custom drive or folder are found instead of only the default Program Files locations.

Changed

• Applying a game profile is now honest about what changes where: it clearly separates the Windows-side tuning it applies automatically (priority, GPU preference, latency, network QoS) from the emulator engine settings (FPS, resolution, renderer) you set inside the emulator, which modern builds keep internally rather than in a writable config file.

Added

• An Overview page for the PC Optimizer, Gaming and Security sections — a status summary plus quick links to every tool in that section; each top tab now lands here. Gaming reflects the live Guardian and game/emulator detection state; Security reflects the real Microsoft Defender posture.
• Load-aware gauges: the CPU/GPU/RAM gauges and their numbers shift from each metric's normal colour to amber above ~75% and red above ~90%, so a maxed-out resource stands out.

Changed

• Refreshed dark and light themes ("Tungsten & Volt"): the accent green is reserved for the single primary action and the logo, while every other surface uses a calmer, higher-contrast palette with clearer card hierarchy.
• Each metric now has a fixed identity colour (CPU green, GPU blue, RAM violet, FPS amber) used consistently in both the live gauges and the Performance Score breakdown, so the same colour always means the same thing.
• The Dashboard's optimise card now has a single clear primary Boost button, with Aggressive and Extreme moved into a quieter 'Advanced' row.
• The PRO badge is now gold and Guardian's 'active' indicator uses a distinct status-green, so the brand colour, status, and the main action no longer look alike.
• Live numbers use steadier, evenly-spaced figures so they no longer jitter as they update.

Added

• Extreme Mode, the most aggressive one-click tier, on the Dashboard (below Aggressive) and the Optimize page: all 22 modules at maximum aggression plus live native game tuning (High priority, 0.5 ms timer, I/O + memory priority, EcoQoS off).
• A free, read-only Extreme preview that lists every module and native action it would apply, and the security/stability trade-offs, so you can see exactly what it does before deciding.
• Extreme native tuning now also applies to native PC games through Guardian while they run (previously only emulators were tuned live).

Changed

• Applying Extreme Mode requires Pro; the preview is free for everyone.

Security

• Extreme Mode states up front that it disables VBS/HVCI and Spectre mitigations (a Pro-only module), takes a system restore point first, and keeps every change reversible via per-module Undo and Restore All.

Fixed

• The app now relaunches itself after a silent in-place update instead of staying closed (the installer's launch step was being skipped during silent updates).
• Launching the app from the installer's finish page no longer fails with 'requires elevation' (error 740): the post-install launch now inherits the installer's elevated rights, which the app requires.

Added

• Opt-in 'Server-side update check' setting that supplements winget with a verified server-side catalog (off by default; uploads only a hashed app inventory).

Changed

• App update scans can now surface updates the server catalog has verified, attributed as catalog-sourced, in addition to winget's results (only when the opt-in is enabled).

Added

• Driver scans read the installed NVIDIA version directly via NVML and resolve unknown GPUs from NVIDIA's online catalog, so more GPUs are covered.
• The app re-checks for updates on a background timer, not just at startup.

Fixed

• App/driver/self update checks no longer report 'up to date' when the check actually failed (timeout, error, no connection); they now say 'couldn't check'.
• App-update detection now probes winget before trusting it, fixing a silent 'no updates' on some elevated configurations.
• NVIDIA GPUs are detected by PCI hardware id instead of only the display name, and the installed version is read robustly via NVML instead of a brittle string parse.

Changed

• AMD/Intel GPUs and OEM-laptop NVIDIA drivers are surfaced honestly (check-manufacturer) instead of a false 'up to date' or a risky one-click install.
• The update server no longer offers an update with no published checksum (which the app would refuse to install).

Fixed

• The CPU/GPU/RAM breakdown bars in the Performance Score card no longer render empty. The shared progress-bar style was missing the track element WPF uses to size the fill, so the bars never showed their value while the numbers next to them updated normally.
• The same progress-bar fix restores the overall progress bar on the PC Optimizer (Optimize) page, which used the same style.

Fixed

• FPS on the Dashboard and the FPS overlay now reads the real display frame-presentation rate from Windows while a game is running, instead of the app's own window repaint rate (which was capped at the monitor refresh and was never your game's FPS).
• The FPS overlay no longer shows a meaningless 'SYS' composition rate on the idle desktop; it shows a dash until a game is detected.
• The Performance Score no longer includes the old render-rate FPS term, which inflated the score toward 100 whenever the dashboard animated.

Changed

• FPS is now read via the Windows D3DKMT display-statistics API (hook-free, anti-cheat-safe) and is gated on game/emulator detection — both the Dashboard tile and the overlay show 'No game' when idle.
• Performance Score is now weighted CPU 40% / GPU 30% / RAM 30% (plus the hardware-tier bonus).

Removed

• Removed the misleading WPF-composition FPS counter that reported the app's own redraw rate as if it were system or game FPS.

Fixed

• GPU usage on the Dashboard and the FPS overlay no longer reads 0 under load. It now sums the GPU 3D-engine utilization across all processes instead of sampling a single, often-idle one.

Added

• Optional auto-update: turn on Automatically download and install updates in Settings, and new versions install in the background.
• A live download percentage while an update downloads.

Fixed

• The updater no longer gets stuck on Downloading when the connection stalls. It now has a total time limit and retries once automatically.

Changed

• Update downloads are bounded by a total timeout in addition to the existing stall detection.

Added

• One-click Install now that launches an already-downloaded, already-verified update.

Fixed

• The updater no longer reports a failed download when the download actually succeeded but the Windows elevation prompt was declined or missed.

Changed

• Clearer update messaging that separates downloading, verifying and installing, and explains the unknown-publisher prompt on unsigned builds. (Releases since 7.9.1 are signed by Arhas India (OPC) Private Limited.)

Added

• In-app What's New window shown after an update, gated by last-seen version and suppressed on minimized auto-start.
• Public changelog so every release is documented honestly and visibly.
• Mandatory-update nag-with-grace banner that only appears on a successful update response, so offline users are never nagged and never locked out.
• Structured release-notes system bundled with the app as the source for the What's New window.

Fixed

• Auto-updater no longer always reports up to date. The client posted to the update endpoint but the server only answered GET requests, so every check failed with a 404 and the app never saw available updates.
• App version is now consistent everywhere. It had drifted between 5.0 and 5.1 across the title bar, tray, logs, and packaging.
• Removed a stale 5.0 version string left in the Terms window footer.
• Update download buttons now share a single download instead of each writing its own temporary file.

Changed

• Releases now flow from a single source-of-truth version file, with a build-time guard that fails the build if any version string disagrees.
• The app version shown at runtime is now read from the build metadata instead of being hardcoded.

Security

• Update downloads still require a matching SHA-256 checksum before they are allowed to run. The installer was still unsigned at this release. (Releases since 7.9.1 are signed by Arhas India (OPC) Private Limited.)

Added

• Passwordless email activation for free and paid users: your email is your license, verified with a 6-digit code, recoverable on any PC.
• New free license type: lifetime, multi-device, no Pro features, no account password.
• Sign-in startup gate with a soft 5-launch grace so you are never hard-blocked.
• Account page to view and manage your license.
• Public download and installer (a proper Windows installer with Start-Menu and Desktop shortcuts, a real uninstaller, and in-place upgrades).
• 22 system optimization modules with tier-aware Smart Optimize one-click selection and per-module undo (most modules fully reversible) plus Restore All Defaults.
• Guardian background service with 12 engines on a 3-minute cycle: emulator detection, memory monitoring, priority elevation, native runtime optimizations, process and service watchdogs, temp cleanup, game-profile auto-detect-and-apply, daily driver check, and app priority management.
• Native runtime optimizations when gaming is detected: 0.5ms timer resolution, raised I/O and memory priority, EcoQoS power-throttling disable, working-set lock, and background-app demotion.
• 8 mobile game profiles (PUBG/BGMI, CODM, Free Fire, Genshin, MLBB, Clash Royale, Asphalt 9, Arena of Valor) and 30 PC game profiles with per-tier emulator and in-game settings, QoS, and IFEO/MMCSS tuning.
• Detection for 6 Android emulators (GameLoop, BlueStacks, LDPlayer, Nox, MEmu, MuMu).
• FPS overlay (Ctrl+Shift+F), free for everyone, using an anti-cheat-safe frame counter (no graphics hooks).
• Driver updates via Windows Update plus direct NVIDIA driver updates, with a system restore point taken before installing.
• Network tools: TCP ping to 15 AWS regions, route analyzer with traceroute and bottleneck detection, DNS benchmark with one-click apply, VPN exit recommendations, and a bufferbloat A-F grade.
• Disk tools: allow-listed junk cleaner with verified freed-space reporting, disk analyzer with treemap and duplicate finder, and a drive-health view with SMART/TRIM/fragmentation that never defragments SSDs.
• Monitoring: real-time CPU/GPU/RAM/FPS sparklines, a hardware monitor with NVML/ADL sensors and GPU fan/power tuning, and LOW/MID/HIGH/ULTRA hardware tier classification.
• Privacy Center with reversible telemetry and tracking toggles, plus a Security Center (free).
• Startup manager, per-app process rules, before/after benchmark, export/import settings, system tray with minimize-to-tray, dark/light themes, and optional start-with-Windows.

Fixed

• Reliability and honesty hardening carried into the first public build: long-running Windows Update operations now honor cancellation so Guardian cannot hang, undo and Restore All now reverse every change completely (including power-plan and privacy tweaks and re-promoting demoted apps), and result reporting is honest (bufferbloat failures grade F not A, applied-module detection is based on real backups, QoS policies use the correct format, and the discrete GPU is chosen over the integrated one for tiering).

Changed

• Only modules 11, 16, 19, 20, and 21 are Pro; every other module is free.
• Email delivery switched to Cloudflare Email Sending.

Removed

• Removed the entire ad system to honor the no-ads promise. No tier shows ads.

Added

• Foundational app: the 22-module optimization toolbox, Guardian background service, mobile and PC game profiles, FPS overlay, driver updates, network/disk/monitoring tools, privacy center, startup manager, process rules, system tray, per-module undo, hardware tiering, and native runtime optimizations.
• This functionality was not released to the public under 5.0; it first shipped publicly in 5.1.