Bitcoin version 0.7.0 release candidate 3 is now available for download at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.7.0/test/
Unless another critical bug is found, this should be the final 0.7.0 release.
How to Upgrade
--------------
If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait
until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older
versions), then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy over
/Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac) or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).
If you were running on Linux with a version that might have been compiled
with a different version of Berkeley DB (for example, if you were using an
Ubuntu PPA version), then run the old version again with the -detachdb
argument and shut it down; if you do not, then the new version will not
be able to read the database files and will exit with an error.
Incompatible Changes
--------------------
* Replaced the 'getmemorypool' RPC command with 'getblocktemplate/submitblock'
and 'getrawmempool' commands.
* Remove deprecated RPC 'getblocknumber'
Bitcoin Improvement Proposals implemented
-----------------------------------------
BIP 22 - 'getblocktemplate', 'submitblock' RPCs
BIP 34 - block version 2, height in coinbase
BIP 35 - 'mempool' message, extended 'getdata' message behavior
Core bitcoin handling and blockchain database
---------------------------------------------
* Reduced CPU usage, by eliminating some redundant hash calculations
* Cache signature verifications, to eliminate redundant signature checks
* Transactions with zero-value outputs are considered non-standard
* Mining: when creating new blocks, sort 'paid' area by fee-per-kb
* Database: better validation of on-disk stored data
* Database: minor optimizations and reliability improvements
* -loadblock=FILE will import an external block file
* Additional DoS (denial-of-service) prevention measures
* New blockchain checkpoint at block 193,000
JSON-RPC API
------------
* Internal HTTP server is now thread-per-connection, rather than
a single-threaded queue that would stall on network I/O.
* Internal HTTP server supports HTTP/1.1, pipelined requests and
connection keep-alive.
* Support JSON-RPC 2.0 batches, to encapsulate multiple JSON-RPC requests
within a single HTTP request.
* IPv6 support
* Added raw transaction API. See https://gist.github.com/2839617
* Added 'getrawmempool', to list contents of TX memory pool
* Added 'getpeerinfo', to list data about each connected network peer
* Added 'listaddressgroupings' for better coin control
* Rework gettransaction, getblock calls. 'gettransaction' responds for
non-wallet TXs now.
* Remove deprecated RPC 'getblocknumber'
* Remove superceded RPC 'getmemorypool' (see BIP 22, above)
* listtransactions output now displays "smart" times for transactions,
and 'blocktime' and 'timereceived' fields were added
P2P networking
--------------
* IPv6 support
* Tor hidden service support (see doc/Tor.txt)
* Attempts to fix "stuck blockchain download" problems
* Replace BDB database "addr.dat" with internally-managed "peers.dat"
file containing peer address data.
* Lower default send buffer from 10MB to 1MB
* proxy: SOCKS5 by default
* Support connecting by hostnames passed to proxy
* Add -seednode connections, and use this instead of DNS seeds when proxied
* Added -externalip and -discover
* Add -onlynet to connect only to a given network (IPv4, IPv6, or Tor)
* Separate listening sockets, -bind=<addr>
Qt GUI
------
* Add UI RPC console / debug window
* Re-Enable URI handling on Windows, add safety checks and tray-notifications
* Harmonize the use of ellipsis ("...") to be used in menus, but not on buttons
* Add 2 labels to the overviewpage that display Wallet and Transaction status (obsolete or current)
* Extend the optionsdialog (e.g. language selection) and re-work it to a tabbed UI
* Merge sign/verify message into a single window with tabbed UI
* Ensure a changed bitcoin unit immediately updates all GUI elements that use units
* Update QR Code dialog
* Improve error reporting at startup
* Fine-grained UI updates for a much smoother UI during block downloads
* Remove autocorrection of 0/i in addresses in UI
* Reorganize tray icon menu into more logical order
* Persistently poll for balance change when number of blocks changed
* Much better translations
* Override progress bar design on platforms with segmented progress bars to assist with readability
* Added 'immature balance' display on the overview page
* (Windows only): enable ASLR and DEP for bitcoin-qt.exe
* (Windows only): add meta-data to bitcoin-qt.exe (e.g. description)
Internal codebase
-----------------
* Additional unit tests
* Compile warning fixes
Miscellaneous
-------------
* Reopen debug.log upon SIGHUP
* Bash programmable completion for bitcoind(1)
* On supported OS's, each thread is given a useful name