14 DAY TRIAL // Oracle has just released a new major version for VirtualBox, which is one of the most used and powerful applications of its kind for Linux users. The 5.0 version has been in the making for quite a while, and the stable version has finally landed.
The VirtualBox 5.0 update is one of the biggest releases ever made, and it's certainly one of the most important in the past couple of years. The developer has chosen to change the branch of the application, but it was right to do so. There are so many features in this new release that it's difficult to enumerate them all, not to mention all the smaller improvements and bug fixes.
There's no doubt that VirtualBox is one of the best solutions for OS virtualization, so it's easy to get excited when such a large release is being made. To be fair, the developers for this application, in this case, Oracle, have been committed to it, and they have been releasing a steady stream of improvements. If we also take into consideration that VirtualBox works the same on multiple platforms, that is all the more impressive.
What's new in VirtualBox 5.0
"A key tool for developers and users creating cloud and local applications without the overhead of using a full server environment, Oracle VM VirtualBox runs on standard x86 desktop and laptop computers. It allows users to set up multi-platform virtual machine environments for software development, testing, and general purpose operating system (OS) virtualization, with optional runtime encryption," notes Oracle in the official announcement.
According to the changelog, the guest OS performance has been improved by leveraging built-in virtualization support, a broader set of CPU instructions is now used for the guest OS, support for USB 3.0 devices has been added, “drag and drop” of content between the host and the guest is now supported, and data can be encrypted on virtual hard disk images transparently during runtime (with AES algorithm).
You can download Oracle VirtualBox 5.0 right now from Softpedia.