FINAL M119 RELEASE! - M119.0.6045.214

M119

• At long last my fine sirs and madams, Thorium is alive again on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1!

    *defects Victor Frankenstein voice*   "It's aliiiiveee.....It's aliiiiivvee!!" > Thorium_119_Win7.jpg

• Please see the release notes of M117 and M119, they also apply to this release. Otherwise, the patches in Thorium 110 - 116 were all backported to the M109 releases, so y'all are already caught up on that. > https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/releases/tag/M117.0.5938.157 & https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium/releases/tag/M119.0.6045.214

• SSE3, SSE4, AVX, and AVX2 builds are provided. Unless you have a Pentium 4 or Pentium D, if your CPU lacks AVX, you should almost certainly use the SSE4 version. I found it works particularly well on Core 2 Duo systems. (Note that some of the 1st batches of Core 2 Duo, codename "Conroe", lack SSE4, so for those, use the SSE3 release).

NO 32 bit builds yet, I'm sorry. Me and Supermium are having issues with the 32 bit builds crashing on launch. If you need 32 bit support, please use the last Thorium M109 or Supermium 119 32-bit release. Me, @win32ss, and @gz83 are working on it.

• It now works on Windows 7 RTM (no SP1 needed), however, it will not run on Windows Vista without the Extended Kernel. See > #3 (comment)

Lastly, thanks to my Patreon supporters, and especially @win32ss. He is a very talented Windows developer (whereas my experience lies more in Linux/Unix). He made the Windows Vista Extended Kernel, and is the main author of Supermium. A moderately modified version of his latest patch was used as a base to start on when making Thorium-Win7.

• I also made a more heavily modified version of the patch which can be used to make a vanilla Chromium 119 release for Win7. > win7-8-8.1-support_chromium.patch

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UPDATE: Upgrading from M109 to this release will break your saved passwords turning them into jumbled characters, you will have to clear them, and re-login to your sites. There is no way around this. It is due to (good) changes in how Chromium encrypts your passwords. On a positive note, after you log into your sites again, your passwords will be more strongly encrypted! Please see > #38 (comment)
UPDATE 2: I fixed the 32 bit builds! It was a stupid mistake on my part. Please see > win32ss/supermium#150 (comment) I will be building the 32-bit builds shortly.

BETA M119 Thorium Release

• THIS IS NOT THE FINAL M119 RELEASE
• It has a few UI inconsistencies, but otherwise, it has all of Thorium's patches
• It is pretty stable (It only failed one of Chromium's integration tests) and I was using it all day yesterday with no issues.
• You MUST have Service Pack 1 installed if using it on Windows 7.
• It does NOT support Windows 7 RTM, or any version of Vista (unlike Supermium). If you want to run Chromium on Vista, please use Supermium instead as I will never target Vista as my minimum baseline.
• On Windows 11, --no-sandbox is needed (not of concern for us but IDK maybe someone out there will run it on win11)

Beta Chromium + Thorium Optimizations M119 Build

OK, I have a beta build that I want ya'll to test.
I took the supermium patch, removed the supermium branding and a few flags, as well as removed the recently added windows xp compatibility code (because it doesn't work yet, isn't ready for prime time, and causes a compiler warning on windows 7). I then added Thorium's patches that have to do with compiler optimizations and speed (but none of the others).

Essentially it is a compiler optimized vanilla build of Chromium with a few flags (including the directx vs GDI flag, so that you can test that). Please report any weird behavior or crashes.

Note that it is AVX, so if your CPU doesn't have AVX, sorry but you're out of luck until I make the full Thorium release. BUTTT, fear not, as that will come very soon (next couple of days).

Thanks to my three patrons for donating, I used the money to get a much better CPU cooler, which let me overclock my Ryzen 3800XT to 4.4Ghz all cores, shaving a few minutes off of build time (and also just cool that I made a DIY space heater lololol).

M109.0.5414.173 - Actual final M109 Release

Why another M109 release?

Soooooo, I am skipping M118 for all platforms (including regular Thorium/ThoriumOS) since it is too old now, as well as the fact that Supermium M119 has been released with some more good fixes. Work for Thorium Win7 based on Supermium 119 is going well, and should be ready by early January.

In the meantime, it turns out they released one more tiny update for M109, and I found some more things I could fix/add/update in the M109 version, so here we are FOR THE THIRD TIME (sorry guys lol) of me saying this is the "last 109 release", but I pinky promise this really is the last M109 release. Happy the day will be when Thorium 119 executes for the first time on a <Win10 system 😄 .

Changes in this version

• Added SSE4 builds for people with Core 2 Duo, 1st Gen Core CPUs, AMD Bobcat, etc. This means that there will now be a release for everyone, no matter what your CPU is you should be able to run it.
• Updated build scripts and args.gn files
• Fixed SSE2 installer
• Added a new chrome://flags flag > chrome://flags#disable-aero, it can be used to disable Aero compositing, and so disable transparent effects in the browser, regardless of the system setting.
• Fixed some minor string issues, and clarified some Thorium flag descriptions
• Updated Widevine to latest 4.10.2710.0 version
• Fixed incorrect arch flags being set in the SSE3 V8 build.gn file > M109.0.5414.172...main#diff-20cdd25666642c5de0377e6e4b19c56f6746c8a78becad5b750e728b0cd6fd5e
• Added tentative dir for the .patch files Thorium will use for M119 > https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium-win7/tree/main/patches#readme

For changes in the previous .172 version that are also applicable to this see https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium-win7/releases/tag/M109.0.5414.172

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As many new users continually post issues about being confused about which build to download, READ THIS IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH TO DOWNLOAD > https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium-win7/blob/main/docs/ABOUT_RELEASES.md

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UPDATE AND NOTE TO SELF: M109 was moved to branch > https://github.com/Alex313031/thorium-win7/tree/M109
main branch now hosts code for M119, and is very similar to upstream Thorium, with the addition of patches and a slightly different setup script.

M109.0.5414.172 - Final M109 Release

[UPDATE]: It turns out they made 3 more minor versions, with the true final one being 109.0.5414.172. I also screwed up Widevine on the last .169 release. So I am rebuilding and uploading them here. I also never completed the release notes for the previous one, so see the bottom for changes between 159 - 172

• Chromium bump from 109.0.5414.159 > 109.0.5414.169 and now to > 109.0.5414.172
• This is the LAST version of M109. It includes fixes for two major security vulnerabilities in libwebp and libvpx. See the new security policy for info about submitting security bugs, and a list of fixed vulnerabilities (which will be updated henceforth). If you use any of my Electron apps, those were also recently fixed.
• Next version will be based on Supermium M118
• Backported these patches from latest Thorium (Includes history of 159 - 169 & 169-172):

• Bundled Widevine now
• Fixed some strings
• Enabled tab outlines and bold tab titles by default, you can control this in flags
• Fixed some build.gn flags
• Added some more optimizations
• Updated libhighway and libjxl to newer versions
• Compiling with newer toolchain
• Enable multi-threaded HEVC decoding
• Update build scripts
• SSE2 and SSE3 32 bit builds are now provided.

M109.0.5414.169 - 6th Release

• Chromium bump from 109.0.5414.159 > 109.0.5414.169
• This is the LAST version of M109. It includes fixed for two major security vulnerabilities in libwebp and libvpx. See the new security policy for info about submitting security bugs, and a list of fixed vulnerabilities (which will be updated henceforth). If you use any of my Electron apps, those were also recently fixed.
• Next version will be based on Supermium M118
• Backported these patches from latest Thorium:

M109.0.5414.159 - 5th Release

• Chromium bump from 109.0.5414.152 > 109.0.5414.159
• Minor fixes, including the "double click close tab" flag. See > ece0d36
• 32 Bit Builds (WIN32) are now SSE2 again, instead of SSE3 like the previous release. So this release can run on CPUs as old as Pentium 4/Pentium M. Fixed it here > d038d08

4th Release - M109.0.5414.152

• Chromium bump from 109.0.5414.141 > 109.0.5414.152
• Added AC3 and E-AC3 audio support, you can test it here > https://thorium.rocks/misc/h265-tester.html
• New compiler flag "-enable-dfa-jump-thread"

Backported new chrome://flags flags from M113 Thorium:

• chrome://flags/#scroll-tabs The default behavior on Linux is to have this on. On other platforms you had to use a cmdline flag. Now, you can control it through the UI for ALL platforms (even Android). This is different from the scrollable tabstrip flag here > chrome://flags/#scrollable-tabstrip which moves the entire tabstrip. The one I added simply changes which tab is active (which I think is more useful).
• chrome://flags/#keep-all-history Chromium by default only keeps history for 90 days. I raised this to 120 days, and also added this flag. By enabling this flag, it will keep history forever. Note that this could cause your user profile dir to grow up to its maximum allowed of 2GB, if you were to enable this flag and then browse for ~many months, etc.

To explain which version you should download, as was requested:

AVX builds require a CPU with support for AVX instructions (generally newer than 2012)
AVX2 builds require a CPU with support for AVX2 instructions (generally newer than 2015)
SSE3 builds requires a CPU with support for SSE3 instructions (the default for Chromium, almost all CPUs support this)

The WIN32 build is a 32 bit build for old processors. The previous 32 bit version was compiled with SSE2, for very old CPUs like the Pentium 4. If you have a CPU like this, use the previous release. This version is compiled with SSE3.

Also includes an SSE3 build of Thorium UI Debug Shell, for you tinkerers out there.

3rd Release - M109.0.5414.141

M109 Windows 7/8/8.1 Maintenance Release

Includes AVX, AVX2, SSE3, and 32 bit SSE2 builds.
As promised, here is a maintenance release of Thorium M109 for Windows 7/8/8.1!
Backported some stuff, and bumped minor rev number 109.0.5414.139 > 109.0.5414.141 which includes security fixes from upstream Chromium.

– Compiled with Polly enabled
– Fixed Font Rendering patch
– Removed EOL warning on chrome://help page > #1
– Backported some more things from M111 including:

• More Polly optimization flags
• Double Click Tab flag (found at chrome://flags/#double-click-close-tab) by @gz83
• Other backports and minor fixes that I can't remember at the moment or are highly technical, see > f8196cd and eb9cb4f

2nd Release - M109.0.5414.139

M109 Windows 7/8/8.1 Maintenance Release

Includes AVX, AVX2, SSE3, and 32 bit SSE2 builds.
As promised, here is a maintenance release of Thorium M109 for Windows 7/8/8.1!
Backported some stuff, and bumped minor rev number 109.0.5414.120 > 109.0.5414.139 which includes security fixes from upstream Chromium.

– Compiled with Polly enabled
– Pre-compiling of inline scripts enabled
– Added "Ctrl+Shift+Q" keyboard shortcut to close all windows.

• Backported more optimization flags for V8, Chromium's Javascript engine, from the M111 release.

• Backported five new new chrome://flags flags from the M110 & M111 release:
  – chrome://flags/#force-gpu-mem-available-mb - Set available VRAM to be used by Thorium. Options are 128, 256, 512, and 1024 Mb. Useful for systems with very low or very high video memory. The default (if unset) is 512 Mb.
  – chrome://flags/#enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers - Enable native CPU-mappable GPU memory buffer support on Linux. (Linux only) You can see the effect of this on chrome://gpu in the "GpuMemoryBuffers Status" section.
  – chrome://flags/#double-click-close-tab - A flag that @gz83 came up with and we both implemented. Allows you to close a tab by simply double-clicking on it, similar to an option in Vivaldi.
  – chrome://flags/#show-fps-counter - Show a F.P.S. counter on each display, which also shows used/available GPU memory. Useful for Web development.
  – chrome://flags/#media-router to enable/disable the media router, i.e. for Cast.

• Logo has had padding removed, and a new logo was created for the windows installer .exe.

• Thorium mascot image added to chrome://version page, under the copyright (for fun)