[squid-users] Squid 2.6-RC1 released for testing

The Squid Web Proxy developers are pleased to announce the availability
of the Squid-2.6 Release Candidate 1.

Squid-2.6 based on the Squid-2.5 codebase, but has many many new
enhancements and new features which have been developed by numerous
developers over the last three years and have now been rolled into this
formal release.

Squid-2.6 is planned to be the last major Squid-2 release. Further
development will go into the much awaited Squid-3 train of software
which is under active development.

Please note that Squid-2.6-RC1 is PRERELEASE software and not intended
to be run in a production environment. While we believe this software
is likely to be free of major defects, it requires considerably more
testing before we can consider it to be stable.

This new release can be downloaded from our HTTP or FTP servers

   http://www.squid-cache.org/Versions/v2/2.6/
   ftp://ftp.squid-cache.org/pub/squid-2/DEVEL/

or the mirrors. For a list of mirror sites see

   http://www.squid-cache.org/Mirrors/http-mirrors.html
   http://www.squid-cache.org/Mirrors/ftp-mirrors.html

Users who download this software must understand that they will not
receive support for this PRERELEASE software once Squid-2.6.STABLE is
released. Thus users who are not prepared to upgrade to the final
version when it is released or do not have time to file bug reports on
any bugs or crashes you encounter with this Release Candidate, should
continue to run the Squid-2.5.STABLE branch.

We openly welcome and encourage bug reports, which can be entered into
the Squid Bugzilla at <url:http://www.squid-cache.org/bugs/index.cgi>.

The most important new additions in this Squid-2.6 release are:

  * Major rewrite of the code and simplication of the configuration
    which handles reverse-proxy or transparently intercepting mode
    of operation

  * WCCPv2 support

  * Support for epoll under Linux and kqueue under FreeBSD for heavily
    loaded servers

  * ETag and Vary HTTP header support

  * Numerous authentication improvements

  * Enhanced operation and integration into Microsoft Windows

For a more information on the individual changes see the Squid-2.6
changes page <url:http://www.squid-cache.org/Versions/v2/2.6/changesets/>,

For more information on changes to squid.conf and other notes related to
upgrading from Squid-2.5 see the RELEASENOTES
<url:http://www.squid-cache.org/Versions/v2/2.6/RELEASENOTES.html>

This Squid-2.6 software was brought to you by Henrik Nordstrom and the
rest of the Squid Web Proxy Development team, and in part based on
countless third-party contributions made available over the years. Many
thanks to all contributors who have either hired Squid developers for
developing new features of submitted new features themselves.

Note: If there is interest in becoming a sponsor for the ongoing Squid
maintenance or development efforts please contact info@squid-cache.org.

Regards
The Squid Web Proxy developers