Chatroulette Clone

It took us quite a while, but we’ve been working hard to getting this maintenance release out to you asap. Here it is (and yes, we are proud of it): Version 1.9!

We’ve fixed a ton of bugs and incorporated feedback from our now more than 500 happy customers around the globe. It’s time to say thank-you for your constant support to all of our loyal customers.

The “missing” libraries

In the initial iterations of our product we had to apply a lightweight copy protection, in order to prevent others from stealing our source code and reselling it. Yes, the folks at chatroulette-clone.com are still selling a cheap, ugly and non-working rip-off of our initial script, but we don’t care anymore.

Unfortunately, in order to enforce the protection of our intellectual property, we could not provide the source code for the libraries, that cover the technical aspects of it. For obvious reasons.

Though our FAQs clearly state that we were shipping the full source code for the user interface parts, some customers asked us to include the source code for the libraries, too.

Starting with this new release, I’m happy to respond that the libs are now included. With full source. We provide those libs on an “as is” base.

Red 5 Support

We are planning to release the full blown Red 5 version in mid May. All our existing customers will receive it as a free update.

By the way: Don’t get fooled by the .com folks claiming they already have Red 5 sorted out. They don’t. You might want to check their ugly, buggy JabberCam yourself and compare it to the polished original, we are providing. Their so called Red 5 version is in beta since weeks. Red 5 does not work at all on it. In fact, check the IDs at the bottom of their app. It’s all still Stratus based. (And it’s all still based on our initial version, which they’ve stolen.)

Doing Red 5 the right way is a complex task. We decided against rushing out a non-working beta, just to claim Red 5 support. We promise, our Red 5 implementation will blow you away. Both, in terms of simplicity and scalability.

There must be a reason, why the Red 5 founders support us, and not anybody else, or? :-)

We have just pushed out Version 1.8 to the download center.

In this latest release we’ve addressed network latency, audio- and video quality issues. On some slow connections the quality yielded by peer-to-peer connections has not been all that good. Chatroulette Clone 1.8 dynamically adjusts to the quality of the end users internet connection.

This will dramatically improve the experience for users on non-DSL connections.

We’ve also added a feature, which you’ve asked for frequently: Visitors can now dynamically switch the language. We ship with English and German sample locales, you are free to add your own! Should you want us to include your translation in future releases, do not hesitate to send them to us!

As always, our demo and the Facebook version have been updated to the latest release.

We have just releases Chatroulette Clone Version 1.7.

This version includes all the UI enhancements that we’ve introduced to our demo sites a few days ago.

Abuse reporting

You have asked for it, we have listened: Chatroulette Clone now ships with fully automatic abuse reporting. Here is how it works:

Whenever a user engaged in a session finds the remote user behaving inappropriately, she can click the new Report button available inside the remote video display.

Internally, Chatroulette Clone maintains an abuse count for each individual user. Once a configurable threshold is met, the reported user gets kicked out of the system.

Reporting a chat partner is limited to once per connection, preventing users from kicking others out by repeatedly sending reports.

As always, labels and dialog texts can be freely changed without a need to recompile the application.

Flex 4 / Flash Builder 4 support

Last week Adobe released the newest version of the Flex SDK, Flex Framework and the integrated development environment, Flex Builder. For whatever reason, Adobe renamed the IDE to Flash Builder 4. Don’t get confused, Flash Builder 4 is indeed the successor of Flex Builder 3!

Starting with Chatroulette Clone 1.7 we will ship the project for Flash Builder 4 and the latest stable Flex SDK 3.5.

As in the past, you can also work with the freely available trial versions of Flash Builder 4.

We hope you like our latest release and are looking forward to your feedback!

Those of you who regularly visit our demo might have noticed, that we introduced some slight changes to the Chatroulette Clone user interface earlier today.

Driven by popular demand, we’ve removed the hardware settings (audio/video device, speaker and microphone volume and the preview button) from the main user interface. This further reduces clutter and makes it easier to use Chatroulette Clone for novice users.

The controls now smoothly fade in when you mouse over your own video display (the one on the right).

These changes also reduced the total Chatroulette Clone width and height to 755×521 making it ideal for the 760 pixel wide Facebook canvas!

We have not yet pushed out these changes to version 1.6 but will do so later.

We are happy to announce the immediate availability of Chatroulette Clone (aka Chatroulette Script) Version 1.6!

Besides the usual minor bug fixing and internal optimization, here is what we’ve added to this release:

Auto Next

Highly requested by our customers, we’ve added the Auto Next feature. Users can switch on “automatic next partner” and Chatroulette Clone will automatically look out for a new chat partner in case the old one disconnects or a connection times out. This features has been high on our list and we are happy to get it out to you with this release.

As always, the label is fully customizable at run time through the included, text-based locale file.

Alternative “Users Online” indication

Another popular customer request: We now allow you to switch between indicating the real number of absolute users online and a rough indication (less than 1000, more than 1000). We have introduced a system setting, allowing you to switch back and force without any need to recompile the Adobe Flash movie.

Change in Licensing

While we have to continue to protect our work against intellectual property theft (read my private blog for more about that), we have significantly changed the way we handle licensing. In past releases, any violation caused Chatroulette Clone to stop working.

Starting with Version 1.6 we handle license violations much more graceful.

We’ve just released Chatroulette Clone Version 1.3.

Due to popular demand, we no longer distribute updates via email. Instead you will now be able to download the most recent version straight from our new Download page.

The new version features a slightly revamped look and feel, which is now also live on our demo site.

Besides the updated user interface, we’ve slightly reworked some of the internal code flow, so that sessions establish even faster.

While we continue to work on the larger road map items, we strive to update with minor changes more frequently to further enhance the Chatroulette Clone experience.

Thanks for making us the most successful Chatroulette Clone on the Web and stay tuned for much more to come!