Hello, Zcash, privacy & cybersecurity news fans! A new version of the zCat - the Android app was released! Please check if you run the latest version 0.1.7. What is new? Let's have a look!

Updated Donation list

The donation list was extended with Briar text messaging app. I tried to list cryptocurrency and/or privacy-focused projects that are willing to accept donations in cryptocurrency (not necessarily only ZEC). If you want to support any project with a small tip, you can have a look at this section.

Donation list and listed projects

A more comprehensive overview of donations or spending ZEC can be found on paywithz.cash.

Wallet section adaptation

Just a reminder that there is some basic overview of wallets, too. A better overview or more complete list might be found on ZecHub. The list was extended with ZEC Paper Wallet made by James Katz.

Zcash wallet overview

Services/Exchange update

I decided to remove SideShift. I was waiting long enough but they did not bring back ZEC swaps. SideShift was replaced with NEAR Intents. Zcash integration into NEAR Intents was announced recently and has already been used by curious users.

Services to purchase ZEC was updated with NEAR Intents

Integration of Odysee

Another social network that wants to challenge mainstream platforms was added to the zCat app. Welcome Odysee. It can be a little fragile because of the lack of official API. So, I decided to sniff traffic in the browser to achieve at least some data fetching.

It is limited in the way that tracking of Odysee feeds does not allow customized sources/channels to be tracked. It is now limited to only Zcash Brasil channel, ZecHub channel and ZecHub Brasil channel.

It may be adapted in the future if there will be any demand. Unfortunately, most challengers of mainstream social media struggle to attract people to use their platforms. It is visible with already integrated platforms such as BlueSky, Nostr, and now Odysee.

TOR stability issues

I reworked the binding of application components to the TOR service. I did not run into stability issues during testing (the app didn't crash). It does not mean that TOR will work 100%. It is still possible that some endpoints will return "HTTP 403 - Forbidden" and refuse to provide data when they detect incoming traffic from the TOR network (but that's an issue on the other side that I can not influence).

Another change was a fix for Glide (the library responsible for showing pictures), where I fixed the configuration to fetch pictures through the TOR network (when turned on), too.

Please, if you run into any new issues, let me know. I use the app, I can detect some bugs. But you might get some extra behavior that I can not run into. Any feedback is appreciated.

Turkish language

Another comeback. After bringing back other languages in the previous version, there is one more comeback - Turkish. It is once again in the hands of Google Translator. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know.

tl;dr

Briar added to the donation list
ZEC Paper Wallet added into Wallet section
NEAR Intents added into Purchase services
Odysee added to track social media feeds
TOR stability issues should be fixed (if enabled)
image fetching through TOR (if enabled)
Turkish language added

Conclusion

That's it. Try, use, report bugs, and enjoy. The next release should be focused on bug fixes and maybe bringing more languages. The idea is to spread the information to the most people (it sounds a bit funny with ~ 50 installs in Google Play, but give it time :))

zCat - The newest version v0.1.7 was released