The Apache HttpComponents project is pleased to announce 4.4 GA release of HttpComponents HttpClient. Notable features and enhancements included in 4.4 series are: * Support for the latest HTTP state management specification (RFC 6265). Please note that the old cookie policy is still used by default for compatibility reasons. RFC 6265 compliant cookie policies need to be explicitly configured by the user. Please also note that as of next feature release support for Netscape draft, RFC 2109 and RFC 2965 cookie policies will be deprecated and disabled by default. It is recommended to use RFC 6265 compliant policies for new applications unless compatibility with RFC 2109 and RFC 2965 is required and to migrate existing applications to the default cookie policy. * Enhanced, redesigned and rewritten default SSL hostname verifier with improved RFC 2818 compliance * Default SSL hostname verifier and default cookie policy now validate certificate identity and cookie domain of origin against the public suffix list maintained by Mozilla.org <https://publicsuffix.org/list> * More efficient stale connection checking: indiscriminate connection checking which results in approximately 20 to 50 ms overhead per request has been deprecated in favor of conditional connection state validation (persistent connections are to be re-validated only if a specified period inactivity has elapsed) * Authentication cache thread-safety: authentication cache used by HttpClient is now thread-safe and can be shared by multiple threads in order to re-use authentication state for subsequent requests * Native Windows Negotiate and NTLM via SSPI through JNA: when running on Windows OS HttpClient configured to use native NTLM or SPNEGO authentication schemes can make use of platform specific functionality via JNA and current user credentials. This functionality is still considered experimental, known to have compatibility issues and subject to change without prior notice. Use at your discretion. This release also includes all fixes from the stable 4.3.x release branch. Please note that as of 4.4 HttpClient requires Java 1.6 or newer. Download - <http://hc.apache.org/downloads.cgi> Release notes - <https://www.apache.org/dist/httpcomponents/httpclient/RELEASE_NOTES-4.4.x.txt> HttpComponents site - <http://hc.apache.org/> About HttpComponents HttpClient The Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is perhaps the most significant protocol used on the Internet today. Web services, network-enabled appliances and the growth of network computing continue to expand the role of the HTTP protocol beyond user-driven web browsers, while increasing the number of applications that require HTTP support. Although the java.net package provides basic functionality for accessing resources via HTTP, it doesn't provide the full flexibility or functionality needed by many applications. HttpClient seeks to fill this void by providing an efficient, up-to-date, and feature-rich package implementing the client side of the most recent HTTP standards and recommendations. Designed for extension while providing robust support for the base HTTP protocol, HttpClient may be of interest to anyone building HTTP-aware client applications such as web browsers, web service clients, or systems that leverage or extend the HTTP protocol for distributed communication.