It's no secret that we are always working on the next version of FinalBuilder and Automise - that's the nature of
software development. That said, the next major versions are taking much longer than we would like - the reason
for
this is dealing with serious technical debt (active scripting).
With this extended development cycle, there are changes that we finished some time ago that we decided just could
not
wait for the next major version. We backported those changes to the FinalBuilder 8.x and Automise 5.x - but
since
some of these changes break project compatibility (with the x.0 releases) we are releasing FinalBuilder 8.5 and
Automise 5.5
Beta
Our intention is to have a short beta period of a few weeks before releasing (barring any showstoppers). Beta
builds are available on the product download page shortly. We do not recommend using the beta builds in
production
just yet - they have so far only had internal testing here. Like always, projects from older versions should
load and operate just fine.
Encryption Algorithm
FinalBuilder & Automise have always used the Blowfish
algorithm (with a 160 bit key) for encrypting passwords, apikeys etc.
FinalBuilder 8.5/Automise 5.5 adds the AES 256 Algorithm (with a 256 bit key) as an option.
There is a new IDE option to specify the default project encryption for new projects - this defaults to AES256.
Note
this only affects New projects. To change the algorithm used for existing projects, open the project info window
from the Project Menu, change the setting and click ok and then save the project.
Note that these options will be removed in FinalBuilder 9/Automise 6, when AES 256 will become the default (and
projects still using Blowfish will be upgraded automatically).
It's should be noted that Blowfish is still considered reasonably secure, this change is to enabled the continued
use
of FinalBuilder in organisations must comply with NIST (US) or ASD (Australia) requirements.
Password Variables
In FinalBuilder & Automise we have always attempted to mask passwords from the logs, but occasionally that
can
slip through.
Any passwords stored in variables were visible in plain text in project project files. For this reason, we have
added
a new Password variable type. These variables will be encrypted in project files. The backing type is string.
Password UI
All password fields on all now utilise a new password edit control that allows peeking at the value (like the
windows
11 password box).
Windows Credential Manager Actions
The Windows Credential Manager actions enable you to read/write/delete credentials stored in the credential
manager.
Project file compatibility Warning
FinalBuilder 8.5 project files are NOT downward compatible with FinalBuilder 8.0 - or put another way,
FinalBuilder
8.0 cannot load FinalBuilder 8.5 projects. The same applies to Automise 5.5 projects. This is due to some of the
changes outlined above.