Updates & renewals
The mental model worth holding:
- Your licence is a 12-month update window, not a 12-month runtime.
- Anything released within the window is yours forever, even after the licence expires.
- Updates released after expiry require a renewal to install, but your existing version keeps running.
- Nothing about your data, recordings, or detection changes when a licence lapses. The update menu just goes quiet.
How update checks work
Section titled “How update checks work”A few facts so you can build a real model of it:
- Once a day, Fregata fetches a tiny signed manifest from the
licensing server. The manifest is
~1 KBof JSON — version, hash of the next DMG, and the minimum licence-window date that version requires. It’s signed with Ed25519; the public key is embedded in the app, so a malicious response can’t smuggle a fake version. - If a newer version exists and your licence covers it, the tray surfaces Update available: v<X.Y.Z>.
- Updates are not auto-installed. You decide when. Click the menu item to open the download window.
- There’s no Sparkle, no auto-launching installer, no third-party update framework. We didn’t want a “Fregata is restarting” pop-up at 3 AM in the middle of an active event.
When your licence won’t cover a new release
Section titled “When your licence won’t cover a new release”If a version was released after your licence expired, the tray shows a yellow indicator instead of the standard update item. The update window says something like:
Fregata 1.4.0 was released on 2026-08-12. Your licence covers updates released up to 2026-06-15. Renew for $10 to install this update; your current version keeps running either way.
Renewing extends your update window forward by 12 months from the date you renew, not from the date your licence lapsed. So a 30-day gap between expiry and renewal isn’t 30 days you “lose” — it just shifts the next year forward by a month.
Renewing
Section titled “Renewing”Two ways:
- Click “Renew” in the update window. It opens fregata.app/renew pre-filled with your licence email and key. Pay $10, return to the app, the new expiry shows up on the next heartbeat (within ~6 hours, usually minutes).
- From the marketing site. Go to fregata.app/manage-license, sign in with your licence email, click Renew.
Refunds
Section titled “Refunds”The marketing site states a 14-day no-questions refund window from the date of purchase. If you want a refund, reply to the licence email — there’s no support-ticket bureaucracy.
What if I never want updates?
Section titled “What if I never want updates?”Skip them. Don’t click. Fregata never prompts more than once a day, the prompt is a single tray menu item, and there’s no nag-screen. Your existing install runs forever.
If you want the menu to stop checking entirely, there’s currently no
“don’t check” toggle — the daily manifest fetch is also how the app
decides whether your licence is still valid (the same endpoint
serves both). Setting FREGATA_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 opts you out of
the analytics block in the heartbeat, but the heartbeat itself is
required. If you’ve truly air-gapped the Mac, see the
7-day offline grace.
Keeping multiple Macs current
Section titled “Keeping multiple Macs current”A licence binds to one Mac. If you want Fregata on two, you have three options:
- One licence, take turns. Use the licence-management page to release the binding when you switch machines. Three transfers per 30 days.
- Two licences. Buy a second one. Same email is fine; the manage-licence page will show both cards.
- Volume licensing for businesses or households with several Macs — email support.