Xtream logins, a search box in Settings, and torrents tied to a VPN

An Xtream subscription is three fields

Most subscriptions arrive as a server address, a username and a password, not as a playlist link. Settings → Sources → Live TV now has an Xtream login form beside the playlist box: fill those three in and the channels appear under Live TV.

• It reads the subscription better than pasting the panel's own get.php link did. That file carries every film and episode alongside the channels: on a large subscription, 31 MB instead of 6, and five times slower to load.
• A wrong password and an expired account are told apart, instead of both coming back as an empty list.
• The list shows a playlist's name, never its address, and an Xtream login is left out of backup files, since that address carries the password.

Search in Settings

There is a search box above the sections. Type a few words, such as subtitle size, vpn or keep films, and it lists the settings that match and where they live. Picking one opens that page, scrolls to it and highlights it for a moment. It searches in whatever language the app is set to, English terms work in any of them, and typos are forgiven.

Tie torrents to a VPN

Settings → Network → VPN is new on Linux and macOS. Pick the connection your VPN creates, and downloading and seeding can only go out through it. If the tunnel drops they stop, and they start again on their own when it is back.

• Only torrents are tied to the tunnel. Searching, film details, artwork and subtitles use the normal connection, and films already on the disk play as usual.
• Windows can't bind this way, and most VPN apps there have a kill switch that does the same job. On Android, the system's Always-on VPN with Block connections without VPN covers every app. Both say so in the same place.

A pack plays the film you asked for

• Sources can say which file in a torrent a result refers to. Ventic used to ignore that and play the largest file, so a film whose only release was an 86-film collection played a different film altogether. The named file is now what plays and what downloads.
• Those packs no longer sit on "Initializing" for a minute or two: only the file you are watching is added, not all 269 GB of them.
• A release you picked by hand is remembered for that film, and resuming comes back to it as long as its swarm is still alive.

Also

• A live channel no longer fails the second it starts. The check before playing waited for the stream to end, which a live channel never does.
• Every new setting is translated into all 72 languages.