We are very happy to announce the availability of the new stable release of Friendica “Blutwurz” 2026.01. In addition to several improvements and new features, this release contains fixes for security problems that Hrizi Bilel has notified us about. Thanks for your report! It also contains the first results of a accessibility review by Casey Kreer.
Some highlight of Friendica 2026.01 are
- we overhauled the embedding of media from various sources and improved several aspects,
- users can now sort widgets and channels,
- the performance of system and user defined channels has improved,
- admins can now export and import contact block lists and block access for non-logged in visitors to media included in posting.
If you have developed your own addons for Friendica note that we reworked our hook system and introduced a new AddonHelper class.
For details, please the CHANGELOG file in the repository.
What is Friendica
Friendica is a decentralised communications platform, you can use to host your own social media server that integrates with independent social networking platforms (like the Fediverse or Diaspora*) but also some commercial ones like Tumblr and BlueSky.
How to Update
Updating from old Friendica versions
If you are updating from an older version than the 2024.12 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version .
Pre-Update Procedures
Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently.
Using Git
Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository, regardless of the branch (stable or develop) you are using. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well. So, assuming that you are on the stable branch, the commands to update your installation to the 2026.01 release would be
cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar run install:prod
cd addon
git pull
If you want to use a different branch than the stable one, you need to fetch and checkout the branch before your perform the git pull.
Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.
Using the Archive Files
If you had downloaded the source files in an archive file (tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive from friendica-full-2026.01.tar.gz (sha256) and friendica-addons 2026.01.tar.gz (sha256)) and unpack it on your local computer.
As many files got deleted or moved around, please upload the unpacked files to a new directory on your server (say friendica_new) and copy over your existing configuration (config/local.config.php and config/addon.config.php) and .htaccess files. Afterwards rename your current Friendica directory (e.g. friendica) to friendica_old and friendica_new to friendica.
The files of the dependencies are included in the archive (make sure you are using the friendica-full-2026.01 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.
Post Update Tasks
The database update should be applied automatically, but sometimes it gets stuck. If you encounter this, please initiate the DB update manually from the command line by running the script
bin/console dbstructure update
from the base of your Friendica installation. If the output contains any error message, please let us know using the channels mentioned below.
Please note, that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database this update might run for days.
If you are using the daemon for your background worker, note that we have moved the functionality into the console. Adopt your setup to use the new bin/console daemon command.
Known Issues
At the time of writing this, none with 2026.01
How to Contribute
If you want to contribute to the project, you don’t need to have coding experience. There are a number of tasks listed in the issue tracker with the label “Junior Jobs” we think are good for new contributors. But you are by no means limited to these – if you find a solution to a problem (even a new one) please make a pull request at github or let us know in the development forum.
Contribution to Friendica is also not limited to coding. Any contribution to the documentation, the translation or advertisement materials is welcome or reporting a problem. You don’t need to deal with Git(Hub) or Transifex if you don’t like to. Just get in touch with us and we will get the materials to the appropriate places.
Thanks everyone who helped making this release possible, and especially to all the new contributors to Friendica, and have fun!
friendi.ca/2026/01/27/friendic…
unmittelbar
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to unmittelbar • •unmittelbar likes this.
unmittelbar
in reply to Tio • • •Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio
I have read "The Origin of most problems" book, and have read most of "The Money game and beyond" book but I unfortunately didn't finish it. Now I'm not much of a reader or anything, but both of those books were really fucking impressive and I remember feeling such joy and excitement reading those. I also read the "The ugliness of beauty" book which was a shorter one. I can only imagine the amount of effort you must've put into creating these books man, you not only had to research about these topics and write the books but you also designed them in such a beautiful manner. That is genuinely an achievement and something to be proud of 🙂
And personally I think perhaps I should start reading more books and such, there are some problems like my eye strain issues and such which hold me back but I realize that getting into a habit of reading will do me good long term.
And about the device.... I read these on an old tablet device that I had with a 10 inch 720p
... Show more...@Tio
I have read "The Origin of most problems" book, and have read most of "The Money game and beyond" book but I unfortunately didn't finish it. Now I'm not much of a reader or anything, but both of those books were really fucking impressive and I remember feeling such joy and excitement reading those. I also read the "The ugliness of beauty" book which was a shorter one. I can only imagine the amount of effort you must've put into creating these books man, you not only had to research about these topics and write the books but you also designed them in such a beautiful manner. That is genuinely an achievement and something to be proud of 🙂
And personally I think perhaps I should start reading more books and such, there are some problems like my eye strain issues and such which hold me back but I realize that getting into a habit of reading will do me good long term.
And about the device.... I read these on an old tablet device that I had with a 10 inch 720p display, I haven't turned it on for a long time now not sure if it still works lol 😅 But yeah the resolution wasn't great for such a big screen, it was all I had at the time.... The form factor of a tablet was still pretty great for reading a book tho, I could hold it in my hand like an actual book 😄
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Tio and Roma like this.
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Thank you so much man! Means a lot!
I would like to know what other format than video would be better suited for new TROM content? I understand that these books may be hard to read unless you do it on a laptop of decent screen. But on the other hand these books allow me to fully express myself via the design.
So tricky...
But if you have ideas let me know.
Rokosun likes this.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio
Making video content would be an obvious choice these days but I understand it can be a lot of work. A middle ground between the two might be Audio books or a podcast style format, however this can be limiting if you wanna include some visuals. I think technically it's possible to include some attachments along with your audio but if your content is predominantly visual then yeah this might not be the best option.
BTW, I will also say that one other advantage of the podcast format in particular is that it's one of the only media that isn't controlled by a single big tech platform and their algorithms. I think Spotify and Apple podcasts have tried to make it their walled garden but failed, almost every podcast is available through RSS feeds even today.
Tio likes this.
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •For me podcasts do not work in terms of creating them. Maybe if you have a cool voice and clear, may be more interesting. But this is not for me. I am also a very visual person and the way I designed our books was a great way to express myself.
Will see....
:P
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio
Yeah I understand about the voice, if I think about it I would also get very self conscious about my voice if I were to sit in front of a mike to record a podcast lol 😅 And about you being a visual person, yeah that's what I was thinking how you expressed yourself so clearly with some simple figure drawings in your last blog post - that made me realize that this is your thing haha 😄 So audio won't help you with that.....
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Sasha
in reply to Tio • •like this
TROM and Tio like this.
Tio
in reply to Sasha • •Sasha likes this.
**el Cartel del Boton**
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
Unknown parent • •Rokosun
Unknown parent • • •I know everyone talks about the origin of most problems book but I feel like the money game and beyond book was just as good and eye opening. I honestly don't remember why I didn't finish reading that book, I think I had to stop due to exams or something - or else there's no way I'd stop reading something that captivating. I should probably go back and read these books sometime 🙂
Tio likes this.
Rokosun
Unknown parent • • •I think I have read most of the book already, because I remember the analogy using aging as a disease and comparing it with our society. Also one of the things that really impressed me in the book is how it answers a lot of the questions that would naturally arise in the readers mind, like how to handle scarce resources - the book talks about the example of organ donation and how that is distributed based on some ethical standards humans came up with.
Tio likes this.