v4.1.0 - Windows

[Anof-cyber]

🚀 ProxyBridge v4.1.0 (Windows)

This release brings a fully native GUI, domain-name rules, no more admin prompt on every launch, and a long list of stability and performance fixes for long-running sessions, VPNs, and heavy traffic.

✨ Major changes

🌐 Domain name support in proxy rules

Rules can now match domain names as well as IPs and ports, for example *.github.com, api.example.com, or *.company.local.

🖥️ Native Windows GUI (rewritten in C / Win32)

The Windows GUI has been completely rewritten from scratch. The previous GUI was built with C# + Avalonia. The new GUI is written entirely in native C using the Windows API, with no GUI frameworks or rendering libraries.

• ✅ Native Win32 GUI, written entirely in C
• ✅ No Avalonia, SkiaSharp, HarfBuzz, or .NET runtime
• ✅ Native Windows controls
• ✅ Faster startup, lower resource usage
• ✅ Simpler deployment

AI-assisted development: the initial implementation was generated with Claude Code. After that, the code was manually reviewed, refactored, optimized, debugged, security-reviewed, and integrated with the existing ProxyBridge codebase.

📦 Binary size

The previous GUI needed multiple runtime files: ProxyBridge.exe (GUI + .NET runtime), libSkiaSharp.dll, av_libglesv2.dll, and libHarfBuzzSharp.dll. The new GUI is a single native executable.

Component	Previous	Now	Improvement
Windows GUI (EXE + runtime libraries)	43.4 MB	517 KB	~98.8% smaller
Installer	11.8 MB	769 KB	~93.5% smaller

🧠 Memory usage

	Previous	Now
At startup	~40 MB	~2–3 MB

That is about a 94% reduction at startup.

During use:

• Previous GUI: typically grew to 100–140 MB, and often kept growing over time.
• New GUI: peaks at about 30 MB during testing, frees temporary allocations aggressively, returns to about 2–5 MB after activity, and can idle at around 1 MB.

⚡ CPU usage

• Previous GUI: commonly 3–10% CPU during normal operation and idle periods.
• New GUI: about 40–55% lower CPU usage in the workloads tested so far.

Performance testing will continue across a wider range of systems.

🔓 No admin prompt on every launch

The packet engine now runs as a Windows service (ProxyBridgeSvc) set up by the installer. The GUI runs as a normal user and connects to the service.

🔍 Rules, proxy settings, and display

• Pick several process names in one rule ([Feature]: Multi select #196).
• Configurable DNS resolution in proxy settings (Domain name resolve via Proxy #177).
• Clearer SOCKS5 CONNECT failure log, with repeated errors collapsed. A failed handshake now resets the app's connection instead of leaving it hanging.
• DPI-aware layout and fonts, and adjustable text size (ProxyBridge v4.0.13 Beta - Windows Testers #190).

VPN Fixed

• Fixed redirected connections being dropped on VPN (Public network profile) connections. The installer now adds the firewall rule the relay needs. (Only tested with WireGuard)

🛠️ Fixes: long sessions, stability, performance

• Fixed the app silently stopping to proxy after hours or days of use. Stale per-port state and a capture-error spin were the causes ([Bug]: Connections log misses many connections (TCP and UDP) #205, [Bug]: The connection drops after the screen has been locked for a period of time. #183, ProxyBridge v4.0.13 Beta - Windows Testers #190).
• Fixed the owner-process lookup returning nothing for new connections, which made matching traffic bypass the proxy as DIRECT without any notice ([Bug]: Connections log misses many connections (TCP and UDP) #205).
• Fixed the slowdown and high CPU/memory with many connections ([Bug]: Performance and loading issues with specific resources (Google, Slack media) in v4.0.0+ #184, ProxyBridge creates large number of threads while forwarding BitTorrent traffic #213):
  • The process lookup now uses WinDivert socket events instead of scanning the system TCP table.
  • Relays run on a fixed pool of worker threads, so the thread count no longer grows with connections.
  • Relay buffers follow active transfers, not open connections.
• Fixed UDP flows being misrouted after hours, and the per-packet cost of direct UDP (affected Discord voice and similar apps).
• Fixed short-lived connections being dropped, and failed packet re-injection is now logged.
• Fixed traffic to the proxy server itself being redirected into the proxy (a stale-port collision).
• Fixed proxy rules pointing at the wrong proxy after deleting and re-adding a proxy ([Bug]: Proxy rules may reference the wrong proxy after deleting and re-adding a proxy with the same name. #203).
• Fixed a stale direct-connection entry that survived the connection closing ([Windows] Proxy rules stop being applied after hours of uptime: stale port-decision cache leaks traffic direct #206).
• Fixed the service crashing every time the GUI disconnected.
• The CLI no longer blocks the engine's capture thread on console output.
• Fixed the empty white area in the rules list ([Bug]: There is a unexpected white area in Proxy Rules table and other tables. #200), the startup task now removed on uninstall ([Bug]: if I didn't uncheck the "run at startup" option before uninstalling, the startup task in Task Scheduler wouldn't be automatically deleted. #199), the installer closes the app safely and launches it after install ([Bug]: The ProxyBridge process was not closed during uninstallation, and the files were not deleted. These files were only deleted after I restarted Windows. #198), the startup tray delay ([Bug]: run at startup is not working in v4.0.11-beta #195), and a profile buffer overflow.

⚠️ Notes

• Windows asks for admin once, during install, when the service is created.
• If you hit a problem, please include your Windows version, the ProxyBridge version, steps to reproduce, and logs or screenshots.

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This discussion was created from the release v4.1.0 - Windows.