Release date: November 3, 2019

Winston will automatically update its firmware when new versions are released.

This is a major release that substantially improves the user experience. Items users will immediately notice include:

• Improved stability of low-bandwidth streaming, as connections longer than 10 minutes are no longer dropped;
• A new option for use of the Distributed Privacy Mesh Network only for high privacy risk sites, allowing users to benefit from privacy protections balanced with a high degree of compatibility, out of the box;
• Better compatibility resulting from improved connection and filter handling; and
• Improved, more consistent browsing speed.

In addition, please note that in preparation for the v2.0.0 release, non-US access to the Distributed Privacy Mesh Network is temporarily suspended as of the general release of v1.2.0.

Additional improvements include

Firmware:

• New: NAT Traversal - The Distributed Privacy Mesh Network will now be able to traverse a layer of NAT between Winston and the ISP, such as from a firewall. This prevents users with a firewall from having to open ports 7777 and 7776 when they have a combination modem/router or CGNAT, for example.
• Improved: Connection handling to prevent some domains from not being found, which resulted in slow page load times and HTTP Errors in Live View.
• Improved: Backend handling of Reload Cache on Third Party Filter page, to update the information immediately.
• Improved: Reduced RAM usage by optimizing filter handling, preventing some episodes of slowness.
• Improved: Rebooting Winston no longer automatically re-enables the Distributed Privacy Mesh Network.
• Fixed: The Winston Popular Game Fixes filter was blocking games instead of whitelisting them.
• Fixed: Domains removed from the Blocked List were sometimes continuing to be blocked.
• Fixed: DNS handling sometimes caused site loading delays.
• Fixed: A bug that prevented some Winstons from initially accessing the Privacy Mesh Network.

Dashboard: 

• Improved: Most widgets were updated to reflect data for just the current day.
• Improved: Several minor messaging changes to augment user experience.
• Fixed: Allowed/Blocked sites didn’t show the correct “Add” time.