Pwn20wnd drops unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release for public testing with a bevy of improvements

It was only yesterday that hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd released unc0ver v2.1.3 to the general public; but as it would seem, he’s not finished fine-tuning the iOS 11-centric jailbreak tool just yet.

In a Tweet shared Sunday afternoon, Pwn20wnd announced the availability of unc0ver v2.2.0 for public testing:

Shortly after dropping the first public beta, Pwn20wnd followed up with a second. The changelog published on Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub repository denotes that the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release comprises of the following changes:

01/20/2019 – v2.2.0~b1 was released for public testing with the following changes:

– Install Cydia Substrate if it’s not already installed

– Validate Cydia Substrate files and reinstall it if the validation fails

– Fix a bug in switching from Electra without RootFS Restore

– Clean up the kernel data structure patches to improve the performance and the security

– Remove Substitute support files in the filesystem

– Remove Substitute support links in the filesystem

– Uninstall Electra’s Cydia Upgrade Helper if it is present

– Improve preference management

– Switch to a more efficient versioning system

– Use a new implementation of the system’s libarchive to extract the bootstrap to increase the performance

– Update rsync to increase the performance and the stability of RootFS Restore

– Improve memory management

– Re-Extract bootstrap if it was extracted on a different iOS version

– Credit Saurik in the credits view for Cydia and Substrate

– Avoid writing to the disk when not necessary

– Add a verbose log window for the jailbreak

– Make the exploits slightly faster

– Make the jailbreak significantly faster and more performant

– Jailbreak itself now takes almost less than a second run (Exploit not included)

– Fix a bug in initializing QiLin by removing QiLin

01/20/2019 – v2.2.0~b2 was released for public testing with the following changes:

– Fix a bug in patch finder that would cause the sandbox escape to fail on certain devices

Some of the most significant highlights from the changelog include the native support for Cydia Substrate (this release drops support for Substitute), fixes to RootFS for users who switch to unc0ver from Electra, improvements to the speed of exploitation, and speed and performance improvements for the jailbreak overall.

Much like other ‘public testing’-oriented builds, this is a pre-release and should be treated as a beta rather than a public release. That said, only experienced jailbreakers with basic troubleshooting knowledge should consider running the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release.

If you aren’t comfortable using a pre-release version of unc0ver, then we advise you to use the latest official public release (v2.1.3) instead; it too can be downloaded from Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub repository.

Unc0ver is a semi-tethered jailbreak just like Electra, which means you must re-run the tool after every reboot. That aside, it bundles a newer iOS 11-optimized build of Cydia that sports the official seal of approval from Saurik himself.

If you’ve never used unc0ver before, and plan to do so now, then you can follow our in-depth tutorial about how to install and run the unc0ver jailbreak. The unc0ver jailbreak tool supports all devices that can run iOS 11.0-11.4 beta 3. If you run into any problems while using unc0ver, then you can report bugs here.

What are your thoughts about the extensive changes coming in unc0ver v2.2.0? Discuss in the comments section below.