We’ve made it! Whisher 2.0 is now available for download here, in our super cool new site. Right now Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux versions are available…and hopefully Windows Vista by next Friday - Microsoft makes it very hard for developers on their shiny new OS.

What’s new? Well, a lot, which is the main reason why we haven’t had summer holidays this year…but it was worth it!

First of all the application is much more stable than previous versions. There are still minor issues to fix, and the occasional crash, but we are counting on the precious help of our active beta testers team to solve them. Secondly, we have pretty exciting new features, the most remarkable being:

• Guided process for easy and automatic WiFi sharing, WiFi tagging and connectivity to other hotspot networks.
• Integration of multiple instant messaging platforms: GoogleTalk, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ and AIM, all integrated in the same interface.
• Twitter: yes, you can also send and receive tweets directly on Whisher. We’re not completely sure, as there always seems to be some hidden lab somewhere working on pretty much anything, but this is probably the first cross platform Twitter application ever.
• Catch up with your friends: check your online address books and find out if your friends are already on Whisher, and optionally invite them if they are missing out on the fun.
• Better usability on the online coverage maps; have fun seeing how Whisher spreads all over the world. We bet you to find a country without Whisher presence.

On top of all this, geolocation of buddies, notification balloons, sounds, LAN support, faster file transfer…we’ve added so much that we encourage you to download the software and join us in the effort of creating The World’s Largest Free WiFi Network.

Said all this, we wish you a nice WiFi experience and very much look forward to your feedback.

The Whisher Team.

We are honored to have been picked as one of the ten Tech Startups to Watch by Laptop Magazine, the leading publication related to mobile computing and connectivity. Quoting the article on Laptop’s website:

Whether they’re creating new products or redefining the technologies we already use, these ten companies are working on improving the way we learn, compute, and communicate. Their names probably won’t ring a bell, but we guarantee that what they’re doing will get you excited about the future of technology. We’ll introduce you to a company that wants to make quid pro quo Wi-Fi sharing the norm, a company that will deliver your voicemail as text messages, and a company that wants to sync and update all of your gadgets simultaneously. Read now and remember their names: We’re sure this isn’t the last you’ll be hearing from them.

This year will be very exciting, with plenty of movement, ideas and announcements in the WiFi space, so stay tuned!

Finally, after some weeks of fixing additional issues and adapting part of the code to particularities found in Linux, we are proud to announce the release of the Linux version of Whisher. It is available from our download page, and is a self-installing package (.sh), which just has to be run under non-root privileges.

One difference we could not avoid in respect to the Windows and Mac versions is that key security cannot be guaranteed, as some WiFi drivers will report the currently applied encryption key in cleartext, thus making enforcement of buddies-only or private sharing modes difficult, if the user is mainly sharing in public mode. Thus, with the Linux client, you will only be able to synchronize the keys of your buddies, not keys from those sharing in public mode. We realize this can be a limitation, but we have to guarantee the safety of all users on all platforms.

This is a first release, and thus has not been so extensively tested as its counterparts, so we will appreciate feedback and suggestions from the community, via this blog, or even better, on our forums, where topics can be organized and followed up on easier. Enjoy!

WPBFAQ (Will Probably Be Frequently Asked Questions)

Q. Why is Whisher not open source?

A. We chose not to release in open source for a number of reasons, but mainly it is to keep the consistency of the client, as it will be tightly integrated into the Whisher platform and web services, to protect a number of code libraries we have licensed, and to avoid as much as possible the chance of having ‘rogue’ clients that could compromise the security of our users. We do welcome all suggestions, bug reports and criticism you can throw at us though!

Q. Why an installer?

A. We realize there are many hard-core command-line users out there, but we chose to make it easier to install for Linux newcomers on mainstream distributions.

Q. What privileges does Whisher run under?

A. It has to be run under normal user privileges, not as root.

Q. Does it have any dependencies?

A. Yes, you may need to install Network Manager if you find the WiFi part of Whisher is not working. Some if not most main distributions already package this, so you probably won’t have to worry. If you need to download it, the version that has been tested to work with Whisher can be found here [FTP].