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Introducing GNOME 43, “Guadalajara”

September 21, 2022

After 6 months of hard work, the GNOME project is proud to present version 43. This latest GNOME release comes with improvements across the board, ranging from a new quick settings menu, a redesigned Files app, and hardware security integration. GNOME 43 continues the trend of GNOME apps migrating from GTK 3 to GTK 4, and includes many other smaller enhancements.

GNOME 43 is code-named “Guadalajara”, in recognition of the work done by the organizers of GUADEC 2022.

Quick Settings

GNOME 43 comes with a redesigned system status menu, which allows quickly changing commonly used settings. Settings which previously required digging into menus can now be changed with the click of button. The new design also makes it easy to see the status of your settings at a glance.

In addition to making existing settings easier to use, the new settings menu includes some notable new functionality:

The new system status menu provides all the same features as the previous design, including the ability to control GNOME’s networking features, such as Bluetooth and USB tethers, and Wi-Fi hotspots.

Next Generation Toolkit

GTK 4 is the major new version of GNOME’s user interface toolkit, which was released in December 2020. With the new version, apps get faster, smoother graphics, new interface widgets, and a fresh new look.

The previous GNOME release, version 42, saw a number of GNOME apps adopt GTK 4. With GNOME 43, this trend continues, with more apps switching from GTK 3 to GTK 4. This includes:

Files Refresh

As part of the transition to GTK 4, the Files app has had numerous updates.

Files

Calendar, Contacts, Calls

The Calendar, Contacts and Calls apps have all been enhanced for GNOME 43.

Device Security Settings

GNOME’s privacy settings include a new Device Security page for version 43. This provides information about the security of your physical hardware, its configuration, and its firmware.

The Device Security settings can be used to detect a variety of hardware security issues, including manufacturing errors and hardware misconfiguration. The new settings can also warn about potential security issues as they happen, such as physical device tampering, or sudden degradation of security tests, which could indicate the presence of malware.

With the amount of malware that targets firmware on the rise, device security is an area of growing importance, where further work is planned for the future.

Web Apps

GNOME 43 includes the ability to install websites to the desktop, as apps. This functionality is a new and improved version of the web apps feature that was available in previous versions of GNOME.

In Web, websites can be installed as apps, using the “Install Site as Web Application” menu item. A selection of web apps is also included in Software: when browsing the categories of apps, look out for the “Picks from the Web” sections.

In both cases, when a web app is installed, an app launcher is added to the Activities Overview, just like with regular apps. Web apps also launch in their own dedicated windows. Where possible, offline functionality is supported, so some web apps can be used even when you aren’t connected to the internet.

Web apps can be removed in the usual way from Software, and Web also includes its own page for web app management.

That’s Not All

GNOME 43 includes many other small enhancements, including:

Software

Developer Experience

GNOME 43 includes new features and improvements for developers who are using the GNOME platform. Read the developers section to learn more.

Getting GNOME 43

GNOME’s software is Free Software: all our code is available for download and can be freely modified and redistributed according to the respective licenses. To install it, we recommend that you wait for the official packages provided by your vendor or distribution. Popular distributions will make GNOME 43 available very soon, and some already have development versions that include the new GNOME release. You can also try the GNOME OS image as a virtual machine, using the Boxes app.

About GNOME

The GNOME Project is an international community supported by a non-profit Foundation. We focus on user experience excellence and first-class internationalization and accessibility. GNOME is a free and open project: if you want to join us, you can.