Sparkle (software)

Sparkle is an open-source software framework for macOS designed to simplify updating software for the end user of a program. Sparkle's primary means of distributing updates is through "appcasting," a term coined for the practice of using an RSS enclosure to distribute updates and release notes.

Sparkle
Original author(s)Andy Matuschak
Developer(s)Sparkle Project (2014–present)
Initial releaseJanuary 9, 2006 (2006-01-09)
Stable release
2.6.0 / March 15, 2024 (2024-03-15)
Repository
Written inObjective-C, Swift
Operating systemmacOS
TypeSoftware update
LicenseMIT License
Websitesparkle-project.org

History

Sparkle 0.1 (beta) was released in January 2006 by Andy Matuschak to provide apps "instant self-update" functionality, which very few applications had at the time.[1]

In August 2009, Sparkle added support for delta updates for installing smaller and faster incremental updates. This was first used to update WebKit's nightly builds.[2]

In 2016, Radek discovered a man-in-the-middle attack vulnerability in applications that use Sparkle to receive updates through an unencrypted channel.[3]

References
  1. Scott Granneman (2010). Mac OS X Snow Leopard for Power Users. Apress. pp. 9–10. ISBN 9781430230311.
  2. Brett Terpstra (13 January 2009). "WebKit adds some Sparkle". Engadget. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  3. Dan Goodin (2 September 2016). ""Huge" number of Mac apps vulnerable to hijacking, and a fix is elusive". Ars Technica. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
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