Volunteers can now upgrade to version 7.14.2 of the software that runs World Community Grid.
We're happy to announce an updated version of the software which runs World Community Grid. You can begin to install the upgrade here.
Background
World Community Grid uses the BOINC open source project as the underlying software for running our research projects. The BOINC project periodically releases new versions of the software to add features and fix bugs.
Every few years, World Community Grid conducts a security review and performs our own additional testing on top of the existing BOINC community testing of the software. Once we have completed these steps, we then adopt that new version as the version that we recommend and provide a World Community Grid branded version of it as a download to our volunteers. The previous version of the software that we recommended was version 7.2, which was released in 2014.
What's the difference between the new and old versions?
We're adopting this new version because it's easier for new users get the software installed and running on their systems. Previously, users would have to come to our website, register, download the software, install it, and then enter their user name and password into the software in order to complete the process. The new version eliminates the last step in the process; once the software is installed, it should automatically connect with the user's account on our website.
We are also providing a World Community Grid-branded version of the BOINC client for both Windows and Mac. (Previously, we only provided this for Windows).
For more information
If you are curious about other changes in the software, you can read the release notes on the BOINC website.
We encourage all volunteers to upgrade to the latest version. If you have any questions about this upgrade, please free to ask questions on our website in the forum thread we've created for this release on our website.
Thanks to everyone for their continued support of humanitarian scientific research.