Vector v0.4.0

The new era of communication begins.

Vector's biggest release to date. Three months of work, a new Community Protocol, a ground-up engine rewrite, and a stack of new features. Here's everything that changed since v0.3.3.

💡 Important Note: Group Chats have been reset in the transition from Marmot to Concord Protocol; if you need to backup any data from Marmot Group Chats, please do so before upgrading to v0.4.0.

New:

• 🧅 Tor Integration: optionally route all of Vector's traffic through Tor in one click; Includes bridges for censorship circumvention.
• 🤝 Concord Protocol: our custom messaging protocol for Encrypted Communities, now the default for Group Chats.
• 👥 Multiple Accounts: run many accounts on a single install, with a quick in-app switcher.
• 🔐 Remote Signers: log in without ever exposing your key, using NIP-46. Pair a bunker by QR or pasted URI.
• 🗑️ Delete Messages: delete a message for everyone, in both DMs and group chats. Vector keeps the ephemeral signing key, a diversion from the traditional NIP-17 spec for enhanced user privacy controls.
• 😀 Custom Emoji Packs: create, crop, share your own emoji packs across Vector, compatible with other Nostr clients.
• 🖼️ Chat Wallpapers: set a custom wallpaper per DM, with live blur and brightness sliders while you tune it.
• 👆 Mobile Gestures: swipe a message to reply, or long-press (right-click on desktop) for the full action menu.
• 👤 Mini Profiles: tap any avatar or name in a chat to peek at that person's profile without leaving the conversation.
• 🆕 Unread Divider: a "New" marker now shows exactly where you left off, both when messages land while you're scrolled up & when you reopen a chat.
• 📥 Android Public Downloads: downloaded files now land in your gallery and Files app like Telegram, with Open & Share buttons on every attachment.
• 📨 Share to Vector (Android): share images, files, or text from any other app straight into a Vector chat.
• 🤖 Android Back Button: the hardware back button now navigates Vector the way you'd expect, instead of dumping you out of the app.
• 🎨 New Themes: two more to choose from, XMR and Neon.
• 🛠️ AI Agent Support (MCP): a new Model Context Protocol server (vector-agent) hands AI agents 21 tools to drive Vector, from sending DMs and managing groups to uploading files and editing profiles.

Improved:

• ⚙️ Vector Core Rewrite: every piece of Vector's logic now lives in a single decoupled engine, vector-core, shared by every client. DMs, groups, profiles, crypto, the database, file handling, all of it. The app shell shed thousands of lines and the core ships with 440+ tests. This is the groundwork for a CLI, bots, and SDKs.
• 💬 Redesigned Chat: the message view was rebuilt as flat, Discord-style rows (avatar, name, content, hover toolbar) instead of bubbles.
• 🌸 Decentralised File Storage: Blossom uploads now fail over across multiple servers, learn each server's capabilities, and sync your server list across your devices.
• ⚡ Memory & Performance: SQLite memory use dropped from roughly 308MB to 5MB, the emoji panel now opens instantly from disk cache, and chat rendering picked up a round of micro-optimizations.
• 🔎 Smarter Emoji Search: added Discord-style shortcodes (type :smile:) and Unicode frequency rankings, so the emoji you actually want surfaces first.
• 😀 Reaction Details: hover any reaction on desktop for a quick summary of who reacted.
• ✏️ Profile Edit Mode: a proper edit mode for your profile covering avatar, banner, name, bio, and status, with inline image cropping and an unsaved-changes banner.

Fixed:

• 📡 Sending on Flaky Networks: fixed relay pool depletion that could break message sending when your connection was unstable.
• 🔐 Orphaned Messages: fixed a rekey race condition that could strand messages mid-conversation.
• 📜 Message Ordering: messages sent within the same second now order correctly, and a phantom unread badge no longer lingers.
• ⬆️ Upload Progress: the upload progress ring no longer freezes into a static donut mid-send.
• ⬇️ Stubborn Downloads: attachments now download from servers that ignore HTTP Range requests, instead of failing outright.
• 📏 Link Previews: portrait preview images no longer balloon to fill the whole screen.
• 🧭 Scroll Position: the chat no longer jumps to the bottom while you're reading older messages.
• 🗂️ System Events: joins, leaves, and other system messages no longer pile up at the top of a chat.
• 🔗 Reply Previews: reply previews no longer leak raw npubs or stray markdown characters.
• 🔒 SSRF & Relay Stability: hardened SSRF protection and steadied the relay connection monitor.