OptimFROG - News

OptimFROG is now also on Twitter, so the best way to stay connected and get timely information about future news and updates is to check and follow @OptimFROG on Twitter. Additional news items will be added as Twitter posts.


21 Jun 2015
After an exceedingly long apparent pause, the OptimFROG 5.000 stable release is finally ready! It is the result of a large number of internal code updates and improvements, featuring several new supported platforms, SSE2 enabled builds, a fully new unified license, updated SDK, updated documentation, and updated website content. You can check all the new release packages on the Downloads page and the comprehensive list of changes on the Changes page.

11 May 2014
The graphical design of the website was completely upgraded from an outdated layout based on frames to a new, modern, and portable CSS based layout. There was no change made to the content of the website.

15 Mar 2011
An updated test input plug-in version 1.31 for foobar2000 v1.1.x is available, with full error reporting support for conversion, verification, and playing.

12 Feb 2011
OptimFROG is back! A new Win32/x86 release 4.910b (stable beta) is available for OptimFROG Lossless, DualStream, and IEEE Float, SFX module, and SDK. You can see what's changed on the Changes page. Also, an updated input plug-in version 1.30 for foobar2000 v1.1.x is available, with cue sheet support (source code included).

26 Jun 2006
OptimFROG 4.600ex experimental version with greatly improved compression for some files and a new foobar2000 input plug-in version with cue sheet support are available and can be downloaded from the Downloads page. You can see what's changed on the Changes page.

26 Apr 2006
OptimFROG 4.520b1, also including binaries for Darwin/ppc, is available and can be downloaded from the Downloads page. You can see what's changed on the Changes page.

04 Mar 2006
OptimFROG 4.520b and SDK 1.210b (for Win32/x86, Linux/x86, and Linux/amd64, including plug-ins sources and binaries for foobar2000, Winamp 5, dBpowerAMP, XMMS, and also usage examples) are available and can be downloaded from the Downloads page. You can see what's changed on the Changes page.

21 Sep 2005
OptimFROG 4.510 pre-release and SDK 1.200 pre-release 2 (both for Win32 and Linux, including plug-ins sources and binaries for foobar2000, Winamp 5, dBpowerAMP, XMMS, and also usage examples) are available and can be downloaded from the Downloads page. You can see what's changed on the Changes page.

14 Sep 2005
The OptimFROG web site has moved to a new hosting server (hopefully, with 99.9% uptime). I expect to finish the release version 4.510 in a few days, and also to make available a new, improved experimental version... The web site will be brought up to date, too!

22 Feb 2004
OptimFROG Lossless/DualStream SDK DLL interface package is out. The package contains the DLL library and header file, a sample command line decoder source, a simple sample command line decoder source, and the foobar2000 decoder plug-in source. You may download it from the Downloads page and check all the release details at the SDK page...

04 Oct 2003
Finally, OptimFROG Lossless IEEE Float 4.508e is out. It is the first publicly available lossless compressor for IEEE Float audio data. Thanks to Frank Klemm for encouraging me to continue working at it and publicly release this version. You may download it from the Downloads page and check all the release details at the IEEE Float page...

28 Sep 2003
Finally, OptimFROG Lossless 4.507 and OptimFROG DualStream 4.507 final versions are out, together with an entire release series 1.07 of input plug-ins, common for both versions. Check them all at the Downloads page...

24 Sep 2003
The OptimFROG DualStream foobar2000 input plug-in 1.065, which works with the new foobar2000 v0.7 RC15, is available for download at the DualStream page.

21 Sep 2003
The OptimFROG Lossless foobar2000 input plug-in 1.065, which works with the new foobar2000 v0.7 RC15, is available for download at the Downloads page.

24 Jul 2003
OptimFROG DualStream 4.507beta1 is out. Just a small encoder fix. You may download it and check the release details at the DualStream page.

20 Jul 2003
OptimFROG DualStream 4.507beta is out together with an entire release series of input plug-ins. Corrected the --ans (advanced noise shaping) option, which previously used suboptimal formulas, and works better now. Corrected some small decoder problems with high amplitude signals. You can now create correction files when using the --ans option. You may download it and check all the release details at the DualStream page.

25 Jun 2003
OptimFROG DualStream 4.507alpha2 is out together with foobar2000 and Winamp2 input plug-ins (the same plug-ins as the previous release). This version has 210% faster encoding at bit identical results and also advanced noise shaping at encoding (--ans) option, improving transparency, especially at middle bitrates. Check it at the DualStream page.

21 Jun 2003
OptimFROG DualStream 4.507alpha is out together with foobar2000 and Winamp2 input plug-ins. Check it at the DualStream page...

02 Jun 2003
OptimFROG 4.506 is out together with an entire release series 1.06 of input plug-ins. Check the Changes page to see the modifications since version 4.505. The site has moved to a new and easier to remember location, http://LosslessAudioCompression.com and it was completely redesigned. The previous address, http://ghido.shelter.ro will continue to exist for around a month, so please update your bookmarks...

14 May 2003
The final release of OptimFROG 4.505 is here, and an entire release series 1.05 of input plug-ins with APEv2 read tagging support. There is also a new input plug-in for dBpowerAMP. The new foobar2000 plug-in has streaming support (playing HTTP streams), which you can try with the piano.ofr example (46 kbps).

26 Apr 2003
The XMMS input plug-in 1.04 for OptimFROG 4.504b is ready for download. Apart from the standard features, it has ID3v1.1 read tagging support and can also play 24 bit and 32 bit files as 16 bit...

24 Apr 2003
I merged all the plug-in common code for easier maintaining, and cleaned it up and here it is the new release series 1.04 of fully featured input plug-ins for OptimFROG 4.504b: foobar2000, Winamp3, Winamp2, and XMPlay... Also, you may check tomorrow for the XMMS plug-in. The foobar2000 input plug-in released yesterday is already outdated, as the foobar2000 player version 0.6 was released, which needed rebuilt plug-ins. I strongly recommend this excellent player to any technical user, as it is (at least in my opinion) a great piece of software, from the SDK programming model to the unmatched functionality.

23 Apr 2003
There is a new version of the Winamp2 plug-in which fixes some little tag display problems, and also an XMPlay plug-in. Check out the new plug-in for the foobar2000 audio player with Replay Gain and full tagging (ID3v1.1 and APEv2) compatibility.

22 Apr 2003
There is a new version of Kermit - 1.5, a graphical front-end for Windows, made by Speek, for OptimFROG 4.504b. You can get it from here. Thanks to Speek for the quick update...

18 Apr 2003
After a longer period than expected, OptimFROG 4.504b is finally here. Thanks to all who helped testing the OptimFROG 4.5alpha version. Check out the new exciting features of the latest release...

30 Oct 2002
There is a new version of Kermit - 1.4, a graphical front-end for Windows, made by Speek, for OptimFROG 4.50alpha. You can get it from here. Thanks to Speek for his prompt update...

28 Oct 2002
OptimFROG 4.50alpha is online! You can download it from here. Your feedback and testing is very appreciated...

27 Oct 2002
OptimFROG 4.50alpha is ready. I will put it online tomorrow, 28 Oct 2002. Up to 2% better compression than other compressors for 24 bit and high sample rate data!

19 Oct 2002
After a long period of absence, being very busy with faculty, job and health problems, a new alpha version of OptimFROG is almost ready. It has significant compression enhancements, support for all integer PCM WAVE formats up to 32 bits, multichannel audio, RAW data, ID3v1 and ID3v2 tagging, CRC32 error checking, error correction, and large (64 bits) file support. All these are based on a new extensible compressed format, making very easy to incorporate additional file formats, algorithm improvements, and additional data without breaking backwards compatibility. I intend to add an asymmetrical OptimFROG algorithm variant, where decoding (playback) will be much faster than encoding, at only a slight degradation in compression performance, and (!) support for Cool Edit/IEEE float (32 bits) format. There will be also bugfix releases for the current 4.21 series.

06 Apr 2002
OptimFROG4.21 is on-line. Some memory leaks and allocation problems fixed. The Winamp plug-in had many problems fixed, and now works fine under Windows 2000/XP. The long awaited support for XMMS under Linux is ready... Thanks to Speek, who made Kermit, a graphical front-end for Windows.

29 Mar 2002
OptimFROG4.2M1 (Maintenance 1) is on-line. This is a maintenance version, there are no important changes: dropping name capitalization for filenames to avoid case mixing, smaller pipe decode buffer for smoother operation, mode 1 is again the default mode instead of mode 2. Also, note that future versions will be backwards compatible with version 4.2. Thanks again to Frank Klemm and Andreas Koltes...

20 Mar 2002
OptimFROG4.2 was put on-line. Most important changes are (again!) up to 100% faster operation on modern processors and up to 270% faster operation on older ones at exactly same results, possibility to add seek information to compressed file, Linux version with same speed and functionality as the Win32 version, full pipe support, Winamp input plug-in with seek support. Thanks to Frank Klemm for his valuable feedback, to Andreas Koltes for reporting me some speed problems and all who encouraged me to make it even better.

18 Feb 2002
As my working version of OptimFROG became much faster, FROG will be superseded by it, so the next release will be an OptimFROG one.

31 Jan 2002
Finally, OptimFROG4.1 was released. Most important changes are up to 100% faster operation on modern processors at exactly same results, and now the program is a native Win32 executable, being fully compatible with Windows 9X/Me/2000/XP. Thanks to Frank Klemm for reporting me some problems with different platforms.

30 Jan 2002
The site has moved to a new, faster, and hopefully permanent location: http://ghido.shelter.ro. As usual, you can use the redirector http://ghido.go.to if the start banner doesn't annoy you.

20 Jan 2002
I plan releasing next version of FROG up to the middle of March. The new version will be a lot faster and will have substantial compression enhancements, thus reducing the gap between FROG and OptimFROG. It already works by now, but it needs a lot of code rewriting.

15 Jan 2002
As I am student, I have now my exams session, until 17 Feb 2002. During this time I will be very busy, so please allow up to two weeks for responding emails. Thank you in advance for your patience.

20 Dec 2001
With a delay of almost two months, OptimFROG v4.0 reached a stable state and was put on-line. I want to give my apologies to those who waited so long to see it. The main reason for this is the fact that I am student, and I have a very busy schedule. Also, one month ago, I realized that it may be possible a major speed increase of the algorithm. That was true, but it took until now to implement.

12 Dec 2001
As with all free services, email made me problems. From now on, please use only the following address to send me email: FlorinGhido at yahoo.com. I apologize those whom I didn't respond to emails from other addresses than this, especially from frog at ghido.f2s.com which made me serious problems.

06 Dec 2001
Freedom2Surf will end its free hosting service on 28 Feb 2002. So I will have to relocate the site. Be sure to bookmark, or remember the address http://ghido.go.to, in order to be able to find later the site.

11 Oct 2001
FROG Lossless Audio Compressor v6.61 was put on-line.

10 Jul 2001
QLFC v6.6W was put on-line.

09 Jul 2001
Ghido's Data Compression page was created.