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Connection Explorer Changelog

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Connection Explorer 1.2.0 (Released 8/19/2026)

Date

08/19/2026

Version

1.2.0.0

Changes

New

  • Devices setup is now a guided three-step flow: Enable network sharing  Enable pairing  Add device, with steps unlocking as you complete them

  • Add device now shows an inline "Waiting for a device…" panel with a 10-minute pairing window and countdown, replacing the old pop-up instructions

  • Beta badge on the Devices page — Local Group device sharing is new and still being tested

  • Dark mode is now the default theme for new installs (your saved theme choice is kept)

Fixed

  • Pairing no longer dead-ends when Nearby discovery is off: creating a Local Group now turns discovery on automatically

  • The Nearby discovery toggle now shows its actual state instead of always appearing off after a refresh

  • Removing a device now actually removes it everywhere: the removed PC is notified, resets itself to setup, and no longer lingers as a phantom member

  • Leave Local Group now tells the other devices — the departed PC no longer stays in everyone's device list as a permanent offline entry

  • A removed PC can now be re-paired to the group; previously removal permanently blocked that machine from rejoining

  • IPv6 connections now show their application name, PID, and path instead of "Unknown"

  • Devices page text is now readable in dark mode (titles were rendering black on dark)

Date

08/04/2026

Version

1.1.6.0

Changes

Added — Visualize

  • New Visualize tab: four ways to explore network behavior, with a device selector and time range on each.

  • Connection Constellation: applications, services, and destinations as a linked map you can zoom, fit, and click.

  • Click any node for its connection count, destinations, countries, and upload/download totals.

  • Watch button turns any service or country on the constellation straight into an alert rule.

  • Connection Flow: traces application traffic through services out to destination countries; click a path for its upload and download split.

  • Network Weather: an hourly heatmap of how far activity sits from your own normal, not a generic traffic threshold.

  • Weather status summary: unusual hours, new destinations, and your quietest period at a glance.

  • "What drove this hour" breaks an unusual period down into the applications behind it.

  • Hover any hour for its connection count, its typical baseline, and how many times over normal it ran.

  • Three plain-language states — Typical, Elevated, Unusual — instead of a raw number.

  • Hours with no history yet say so, rather than pretending you have a baseline.

  • App Fingerprints: today's behavior for an application against its own 30-day pattern, with an optional baseline overlay.

  • Fingerprints cover destinations, upload ratio, country spread, active hours, and connection persistence.

 

Added — Multiple devices

  • Local Group: pair Connection Explorer installations on the same private LAN into one view.

  • Alerts, map, and timeline federate across paired devices, with per-device filtering and coverage indicators.

  • Visualize honors the same device selector, so any view can show one device or the whole group.

  • Nearby discovery toggle controls whether new installations on your LAN can find your Local Group.

  • LAN access card shows whether firewall rules and network profile are ready, with one-click allow or repair.

  • Devices panel: rename or remove any paired device, and see which one is this PC.

 

Added — Connection test

  • Test button on every paired device walks the connection step by step and names the one thing that is wrong.

  • Checks network profile, firewall rules, device address, same-subnet, reachability, secure handshake, authentication, clock sync, and discovery.

  • Each failure comes with what to do about it, in plain language.

  • Copy report puts the whole result on the clipboard for a support ticket, including both agent versions and the resolved address.

  • Reports a clock more than 30 seconds out of sync, which silently discarded live updates with no visible symptom.

  • Reports when two devices are on different subnets, so guest Wi-Fi and VLAN splits are caught before anything else.

 

Added — Map and appearance

  • Bandwidth arcs rebuilt: full draw-and-decay arcs with a glow underlay and traveling head, up to three in flight.

  • Arcs cast the top uploader and downloader plus rotating guests, with new endpoints announced in purple.

  • Dark mode overhaul: theme-aware brushes across every view, brand purple headers, and readable interactive text.

  • Optional daily event log for AI-assisted anomaly review, per category, following your existing retention setting.

 

Fixed

  • Devices panel no longer reports "tray service is unavailable" while the tray service is running normally.

  • Pairing checks give up on a switched-off device after 2 seconds instead of 10, which had kept the channel to the tray busy continuously.

  • Map no longer blinks all dots in unison; redraws that change nothing visible are skipped.

  • Home location appears as soon as the map does, using the last session's position instead of waiting on a lookup.

  • Network Weather excludes listener and unattributed rows from both current counts and the baselines they are compared against.

  • Alerts view shows local data immediately while paired devices respond, instead of overlapping loading and empty states.

 

Changed

  • Peer alert fan-out timeout cut from 10 seconds to 3.

  • Devices panel polls for pairing requests every 5 seconds instead of every 2.

  • Device names are no longer broadcast in presence announcements on the LAN.

Date

07/21/2026

Version

1.1.2.0

Changes

  • New Apps view
    The "Processes" tab is now Apps — a clearer picture of what each program on your PC is doing on the network. Every app shows its status, how many connections it has open, how much data it's moved in the last 24 hours, which countries it's talked to, and its memory use. Click any app to expand it and see its individual processes and every destination it connected to.

  • Block an app in one click
    Stop (or re-allow) a program's network access right from the list — no digging through settings.

  • Activity at a glance
    Each app now has a mini activity graph showing its connection activity over the past 24 hours, so you can spot which apps are busy and when.

  • Bandwidth trends
    The Bandwidth list now shows a traffic trend graph for each item, and you can expand any row to see exactly where its data went.

  • A more consistent, polished look
    The Apps, Bandwidth, DNS, and Connections screens now share the same clean table design.

  • Speed improvements
    Scrolling and resizing the monitoring screens are much smoother, even with lots of activity, and the app is lighter on system resources in the background.

  • Improved Database consistency 
    Connection Explorer now cleans up all older history consistently and reclaims the freed disk space automatically — so the database no longer grows unchecked over months of use, even when the app is running quietly in the background.

  • Translations
    Various updates to translation files to improve consistency and accuracy.

Connection Explorer 1.1 Released (7/16/2026)

Date

07/14/2026

Version

1.1.0.0

Changes

  • Amber bandwidth pulses: once a minute, arcs sweep to the top 4 endpoints moving real data - per-endpoint attribution

  • Purple new-connection arcs: volleys at most every 30s, max 3 per volley, travel slowed to 3-7s (was a sub-second splash)

  • Improved first-load performance for better startup experience

Date

07/13/2026

Version

1.0.1.0

Changes

  • Map view overhauled with new vector-based map

  • Map support dialog updated

  • New Color schemes for Map view for light/dark

  • MCP server (beta) updated, disabled by default

Date

05/28/2026

Version

1.0.0.8

Changes

  • Added network adapter detection (Ethernet / Wi-Fi / Other) for each connection based on local IP-to-interface mapping

  • Added new "Adapter" column in Connections view between Protocol and Local Address with type icon and adapter name tooltip

  • Added interface_name and interface_type columns to connections database table with automatic migration for existing databases

  • Window now sizes to the monitor it actually opens on, so it fits correctly in multi-monitor setups with different resolutions

  • Map cluster panel: replaced the per-row "Copy" button with a "⋯" menu giving full actions per IP — Copy IP, Search with AI, Search Google, Traceroute, Block IP, and Block App

  • Lowered the minimum window size (1400×800 → 1100×680)

  • Persisted adapter info on both single-row and batch connection writes so historical rows retain the data

  • Legacy/historical connection rows without adapter data display as "—"

  • Experimental Support for MCP server connection, disabled by default. (right click system tray icon to setup)

  • Improvements to Map flyout overlay to not cover up selected map dot.

Connection Explorer 1.0 Released (04/14/2026)

Date

04/14/2026

Version

UI: 1.0
File Version: 1.0.0.5

Changes

Connection Explorer v0.95 Changelog (Released 3/18/2026)

Date

03/18/2026

Version

UI: 0.95
File Version: 0.9.5.0

Changes

  • Locale & Internationalization

    • Fixed all date/time formatting across both the UI and background tray service to use InvariantCulture, preventing data loss on non-English/non-Western locales

    • Localized hardcoded English error messages throughout the app to use LocalizationService

    • Updated copyright year to 2026 across all assemblies and language files

  • Performance

    • Moved service initialization to a background thread, parallelized with splash screen delay so the UI stays responsive during startup

Connection Explorer v0.90 Changelog (Released 01/21/2026)

Date

1/21/2026

Version

UI: 0.90
File Version: 0.9.0.0

Changes

General:

  • Added new heartbeat checks to make sure data is being populated as expected for all data pipelines.

  • Updated language detection mechanism to improve reliability for non-English Windows installations.

  • Database lookup optimizations to improve return times for data queries.

Alerts Panel 

  • Added application icons next to process names in the alerts table

Connections Panel 

  • Renamed "Process" column to "App"

  • Removed redundant PID from the app name (PID is already shown in its own column)

Processes Panel

  • Renamed "Process Name" column to "App"

  • Added application icons next to app names

Firewall Panel

  • Renamed Blocked Panel to Firewall

  • Added new Inbound/Outbound controls for blocking specific network direction for apps.

  • Added sparklines to show 24hr data usage per-app

  • Added a functional search box with Enter-to-search behavior

  • Search icon inside the box changes to X when text is entered for easy clearing

Dashboard

  • Fixed missing application icons in "Top Apps by Bandwidth" section

  • Removed “New IP count” widget

 Splash Screen 

  • Added new loading animation

  • Fixed icon being cut off at the top.

  • Firewall buttons now work when running as admin

  • New loading animation on some panels

  • Icon cache is now properly used in all locations

  • Update data lookup to use a safer method for API calls.

  • New: 

    • Renamed Block to Firewall with easy block/unblock applications for inbound/outbound connections and updated layout.

    • Firewall panel now shows all active applications with sparklines instead of only blocked applications.

    • Icons added to bandwidth and other areas replacing generic placeholder icons

  • Fixed:

    • Fixed categorization of events when using non-English languages

    • Fixed map centering when clicking the reset button

    • Fixed Activity timeline to better show connections/bandwidth 

    • Fixes non-English connection data not resolving

    • Improvements to alert panel loading to fix lag when loading many items are visible.

Connection Explorer v0.80 Changelog (Released 12/15/2025)

Date

12/15/2025

Version

UI: 0.80
File Version: 0.8.0.0

Changes

  • Added Bandwidth panel.

  • Added per process bandwidth tracking capabilities.

  • Added activity graph to home panel. 

  • Added right-click focus view on map for easier viewing of clustered dots.

  • Added new navigation controls for map view.

  • Added map dot identifiers for the process when hovering.

  • Fixed incorrect date format database errors.

  • Fixed startup process checkbox to now function.

  • Fixed dark mode not staying persistent after app close. 

  • Fixed DNS data not always restarting after device comes out of sleep/hibernate.

  • Changed startup process to scheduled task.

  • Changed system tray app should start as admin.

Connection Explorer 0.7.3.1 Changelog (Released 11/12/2025)

11/12/2025

Version

0.7.3.1

Platforms

  • Stardock

Changes