What's new in Podmailing ZER0-9?

In a nutshell

The user interface remains pretty much the same. But we have changed everything under the hood and on the server side, so that podmails are now much more reliable, start uploading immediately and are better monitored than ever. Displayed figures have become more consistent and give satisfying indications about transfer progress.

There is also a slight difference in the reception process: the ".zed" file that allows receiving podmails is now provided through a delivery Web page instead of directly as an attachment in the e-mail. This allows us to be more compatible with all e-mail situations. And it will also allow us to propose new services directly in that page in the future.

Also, regarding identification: you will just be asked your e-mail address and a chosen nickname when the application starts. No need to enter a password.

You can find below some additional technical details that should satisfy the geek within you:

Modifications on Client / Server side

Podmailing is now using a brand new server developed from scratch on the Ruby On Rails platform. This is a real web-service that will allow us to significantly extend our features. In order to work with the new server, the "Client" side has been totally re-written - including the e-mail sending method, transfer launching and transfer monitoring.

What does it change?

• File uploads start immediately instead of being delayed several minutes as before.
• The file upload % is much better handled: it now indicates the share of the file really transferred to our relay servers. And if you are sending a file already existing on the relay, it is immediately set to 100%, which makes sense.
• Fixed issues with security software. E-mail sending will not be stopped by anti-viruses or Norton Internet Security anymore.

Modifications on the Peer-To-Peer side

The P2P engine is still BitTorrent, but we have upgraded from "BitTorrent 4" to the latest "BitTorrent 5" version. It was a major change but it was a real improvement:

• Better reliability, especially on Windows, where network limitations were preventing some Podmails from being sent or received.
• New UPNP support which automatically configures your router (if you have one) to optimize transfers.

About bugs

Some of our toughest bugs could only be solved by designing a new back-end. Done! So if you still encounter these bugs with the new ZERO-9 version, you really have to tell us in the forum.

Here is a list of the major problems we solved:

• Crash at launch (blue logo and then nothing) = OK √
• Transfer that does not start = OK √
  except for a tricky case when you try to send folders with the same name and same location but different contents and when you try to send files that are already part of another podmail.
• Transfer of a sent podmail that stops just before reaching 100% = OK √
• Crash when sending podmails that comprise Chinese symbols = OK √
• Sent podmails not displayed in the appropriate tab = OK √ 
• ".zed" files reception problems in web-mails = OK √ 
• Problems when installing in a folder with accents = OK √
• Drag-n-drop on MacOS = OK √
• And many other bug fixes

NB: there is a "bug" that cannot be solved: the recipient might not receive the sent podmail. It is generally due to an overzealous anti-spam filter. In that case, ask him to search for the e-mail in his spam box and to add to his address book contacts. More info here.