Aether Desktop

Freedom, in one tap

The Windows edition of Aether Mobile — same interface, same icon, same core engine.

فارسی · Releases · Setup guide

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🎉 Version 1.0.0 — first desktop release

This is the first release of Aether for Windows. It is version 1.0.0 because the desktop edition starts its own version line, independent of the Android app.

Every feature of the Android edition is implemented here, with nothing left out.

Interface

• Identical design, colour palette and icon to the mobile edition (always dark theme)
• Adapted for large desktop displays: two-column layout with a persistent side rail
• Custom Windows 11-style title bar (minimise / maximise / close) — double-clicking it maximises/restores, like any native Windows window
• Full right-to-left support
• Fully bilingual interface — English and فارسی — switchable live from the Advanced tab; the choice is stored outside the profile, so "Reset to defaults" never changes your language

Connection

• Connect button with the same 8 states as Android: Disconnected · Starting engine · Connecting · Verifying · Connected · Reconnecting · Disconnecting · Connection failed
• Protocols: Smart (automatic pick — same name as the mobile edition) · MASQUE · WireGuard · WARP×2
• Scan modes: Turbo · Balanced · Thorough · Stealth · Ironclad
• IPv4, IPv6 or dual-stack
• Smart automatic protocol fallback when a protocol fails
• Automatic reconnect (capped at 5 attempts, exactly as on Android)
• Live connection details: protocol, endpoint, latency, uptime
• Traffic panel: live per-second download/upload rates plus session totals
• IP badge with a country flag — "Your IP" while disconnected, the tunnel's "Server IP" once connected. Flags are built-in SVGs (75+ countries, neutral globe fallback), because Windows has no emoji flag font

Advanced settings

Setting	Values
Noize	Off · Light · Firewall · Balanced · GFW · Aggressive
Endpoint	Auto · Manual peer · Manual range
MTU	presets plus a free numeric field (default 1280)
Keepalive	presets plus a free numeric field
Fragment	on / off
ECH	on / off
MASQUE HTTP/2	on / off
Quick reconnect	on / off
Split tunnelling	Off · Include · Exclude
Language	English · فارسی

Split tunnelling selects applications by executable name instead of Android package name — the only place where the desktop edition differs, because Windows has no package names.

A Reset to defaults button restores every setting above to its factory value — the UI language is deliberately left untouched.

Network sharing

• Share the tunnel with other devices on your local network
• SOCKS5 on port 10810, HTTP on port 10811 (same ports as the Android edition)
• Binds only to the detected LAN address, never to every interface
• Endpoint addresses shown in the app with one-click copy
• Both ports auto-detect the protocol — each one accepts HTTP and SOCKS5, so either port works in either field

Diagnostics

• Run test — the same live self-test as Android: the checks update in place (PENDING → RUNNING → PASS / FAIL) under a colour-coded overall verdict
• Environment check — a six-point report, identical in meaning to the Android panel:
  1. Engine binary present
  2. Wintun driver present
  3. Administrator rights
  4. Local SOCKS5 port reachable
  5. Real tunnel egress verified (SOCKS5 handshake plus an outbound request)
  6. Profile sanity
• Live, colour-coded log console (E / W / I / D levels) that refreshes every second
• Copy logs (with a confirmation toast) and Clear actions

Windows-specific behaviour

• Real system-wide tunnel using the official, Microsoft-signed Wintun driver — the desktop equivalent of Android's VpnService
• Windows Firewall rule configured automatically during installation, removed on uninstall
• Single-instance launch: reopening focuses the existing window
• Statically linked — no Visual C++ Redistributable required
• WebView2 installed automatically if missing
• On connect, the Windows system proxy (WinINET — what Edge/Chrome/Firefox call the "system proxy") is pointed at a local HTTP↔SOCKS5 bridge so system traffic really flows through the tunnel; it is reverted on disconnect, on errors and on exit

About panel

• App version, core engine version and CPU architecture at a glance
• Expandable credits card — links to the upstream Cluvex Studio project (GitHub · Telegram) and to the Windows edition, with the upstream feature list and what this build adds
• Links open in your default browser

Deliberately absent

• Proxy Mode — not meaningful on Windows, so it was left out by design. The build pipeline actively fails if anyone reintroduces it.
• In-app updater — removed. The About panel links to the GitHub Releases page instead.

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Downloads

All files are produced automatically by GitHub Actions and published to Releases. No manual step is involved at any point.

File	Description
Aether-Setup-1.0.0-x64.exe	Windows 64-bit — graphical installer with uninstaller (recommended)
Aether-Setup-1.0.0-x86.exe	Windows 32-bit — graphical installer with uninstaller
Aether-Portable-1.0.0-x64.zip	Portable, no installation, 64-bit
Aether-Portable-1.0.0-x86.zip	Portable, no installation, 32-bit
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksums for verifying file integrity

Requirements: Windows 10 build 1809 (October 2018 Update) or newer. Establishing the tunnel requires Administrator rights, because a network adapter must be created — the direct equivalent of Android's VPN permission prompt.

The portable edition keeps its settings and logs next to the executable, so it leaves no trace elsewhere on the machine.

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Technology

Layer	Choice	Why
Shell	Tauri 2	Uses the system WebView2, so the installer stays a few megabytes instead of ~100 MB with Electron
Logic	Rust	The Aether core engine is already Rust, so the app and the engine share one toolchain
Interface	HTML / CSS / vanilla JS, bundled by Vite	Reproduces the Compose design exactly, with no framework overhead
Tunnel	Wintun	The official WireGuard driver for Windows — signed by Microsoft
Installer	Inno Setup 6	Modern resizable wizard, bilingual, real uninstaller
Automation	GitHub Actions	Every build, test, package and publish step runs without human involvement

Module mapping from Android

Android (Kotlin)	Windows (Rust)
MainActivity / AetherApp	main.rs
AetherController	state.rs
AetherVpnService	tun.rs
AetherProcess	engine.rs
Profile	profile.rs
ProfileStore	store.rs
NetProbe / PortProbe	probe.rs
SmartAuto	smart_auto.rs
ShareBridge	share.rs
Diagnostics	diagnostics.rs
DiagnosticsLog	log.rs

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Repository layout

.github/workflows/build.yml   the entire automated pipeline
installer/aether.iss          professional installation wizard
scripts/                      build, packaging and verification scripts
src/                          interface (HTML / CSS / JS)
src-tauri/                    application logic (Rust)
native/aether/                the Aether core engine, synced automatically

Building it yourself

You do not need to. Pushing to main produces every artifact automatically. See SETUP.md for the step-by-step repository setup guide.

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE. Bundles the Wintun driver under its own licence.