RetroGate v1.2.0 — Wayback cache with search, capsules, and prefetch

Introducing the Cache tab

Wayback browsing just got dramatically faster and more organized. Every archived page you've visited has always been cached on disk — this release adds a proper UI to browse, filter, search, curate, and share it.

Highlights

• Cache tab under Monitor with hero stats (entries, on-disk size, hits, oldest entry), a sortable table, and a live filter bar (URL, domain, content-type, tag, pinned-only).
• Full-text search over cached HTML via SQLite FTS5 with Porter stemming. Phrase queries, AND/OR/NEAR, prefix wildcards. Matching rows show highlighted snippets.
• Capsules — named bundles of cache entries you can create from a selection, rename, filter by, and export as a .retrogate-capsule folder you can share with friends. Drop-in import for bundles you receive.
• Prefetch — paste a URL list and RetroGate warms the cache at a polite 1 request/second. Perfect for pre-loading a reading list before a flight or train.
• Offline Mode — serve from cache only, never call archive.org. For demos, weak connections, or when the Archive is rate-limiting you.
• Retention — optional size (MB) and age (days) caps with pin-aware LRU eviction. Pinned entries are never auto-deleted.
• Tags + notes — inline per-entry editor in a detail drawer, searchable via the tag filter.
• Dashboard "Time Saved" card counts the round-trips you've avoided.

Quality of life

• Sortable columns and hero stats across Request Log and Wayback Timeline — match the Cache tab's feel.
• Settings now live in the sidebar (General, Advanced). ⌘, still works and jumps to General. The modal Settings window is gone.
• Unified About view — the app-menu About and in-app About are now the same component.
• Section-footer explanations for Minify HTML, Transcoding Bypass Domains, and Dead Endpoint Redirects.

Fixed

• Wayback "Page Not Archived" responses no longer pollute the cache (the set() call was previously happening before the error check).
• In-memory LRU is now a real LRU (previously dropped everything at capacity).
• Cache keys migrated from DJB2 to SHA-256 hex prefix — far less collision risk at scale.

Notes for upgraders

• The on-disk cache format is bumped from v1 to v2. On first launch after upgrade, the existing cache dir (~/Library/Caches/RetroGate/) is wiped once. All pages re-cache transparently as you browse; if you've been using Wayback mode in 1.1, expect the first few pages to fetch at normal Wayback speed, then everything's instant again.
• If you want the full-text search index populated for pages cached before this release, click Build Index in the Cache tab's Content Search row. Going forward, new pages index automatically.

Under the hood

• New SQLite metadata sidecar at ~/Library/Caches/RetroGate/index.sqlite (WAL-mode, FTS5)
• 81 unit tests (was 30): CacheIndex, CacheEvictionPolicy, CapsuleBundler, CacheWarmer, and existing transcoder tests
• Entitlement added: com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write for capsule export/import
• Package.resolved is now tracked for reproducible dependency versions

Full changelog · Manual

RetroGate v1.1.0 — Universal build + update checker

RetroGate v1.1.0

What's new

• Universal binary — Runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1–M5) and Intel Macs
• macOS 13 (Ventura) support — Minimum deployment target lowered from macOS 14 to macOS 13
• Update checker — Notifies you on launch when a new version is available on GitHub
• Dynamic version display — About view now reads version from bundle (no more hardcoded strings)

Fixes

• Regenerated Xcode project to include all source files
• Removed outdated implementation plan from docs
• Updated architecture documentation to reflect current feature set

Installation

1. Download RetroGate-1.1.0-universal.dmg
2. Open the DMG and drag RetroGate to Applications
3. Launch RetroGate
4. Configure your vintage browser's HTTP proxy to the address shown in RetroGate

Requirements

• macOS 13+ (Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia, Tahoe)
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
• A vintage Mac or PC on the same network

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Copyright © 2026 Bruno van Branden (Simplinity) — Licensed under GPL v3

RetroGate v1.0.0 — Browse the modern web on vintage Macs

RetroGate v1.0.0

Browse the modern web on vintage Macs.

RetroGate is a macOS proxy server that sits between your vintage computer and the modern internet. It handles TLS, transcodes HTML5 to HTML 3.2, converts modern image formats, and integrates with the Wayback Machine for time-travel browsing.

Features

• TLS Bridge — Fetches HTTPS sites and serves them as plain HTTP to your vintage browser
• HTML Transcoder — Converts HTML5/CSS3/JS pages to clean HTML 3.2 (three levels: minimal, moderate, aggressive)
• Image Transcoder — WebP/AVIF → JPEG/GIF, with Floyd-Steinberg dithering for 1-bit displays
• Wayback Machine Mode — Set a date and browse the web as it was, with temporal consistency for sub-resources
• Built-in Start Page — Search gateway (DuckDuckGo), curated retro links, Wayback status
• Dead Endpoint Redirection — home.netscape.com, www.geocities.com, etc. → Wayback archives
• 10 Vintage Presets — System 6 through Mac OS X, Windows 3.1 through Windows XP
• PAC File — Automatic proxy configuration at http://retrogate/proxy.pac
• Response Caching — Wayback content cached locally (archived pages never change)
• Color Depth Support — B&W, 16 colors, 256 colors, Thousands, Millions

Requirements

• macOS 14+ (Sonoma) on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4/M5)
• A vintage Mac or PC on the same network

Installation

1. Download RetroGate-1.0.0.dmg
2. Open the DMG and drag RetroGate to Applications
3. Launch RetroGate
4. Configure your vintage browser's HTTP proxy to the address shown in RetroGate

Links

• 🌐 retrogate.app
• 📖 Manual

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Copyright © 2026 Bruno van Branden (Simplinity) — Licensed under GPL v3