It's December, and that means many things, like some people receiving gifts from others or even from themselves. It also means that the project that so loves to overuse the letter K had to release new versions of its main applications; a set of apps that is already available is called KDE Gear 25.12These are all major updates, so they come with new features to improve productivity and usability.
KDE Gear 25.12 arrives with a set of updates focused on both usability and specific features in several of the most popular applications in the KDE ecosystem. This quarterly update not only polishes existing tools but also introduces new capabilities that refine the user experience.
KDE Gear 25.12 Highlights
One of the most notable new features is in Itinerary, the trip planning app. This version significantly expands support for more data extractors, meaning it can now automatically process information from many more tickets and transport events. Furthermore, the app makes route planning easier by displaying the current location as the default origin, which is useful for spontaneous trips or mobile travel.
Dolphin's file explorer continues to be refined with concrete improvements: deleted temporary folders no longer end up in the home trash, making system management cleaner. You can now hide files and folders from the context menu to keep your projects or sensitive data organized and distraction-free.
The advanced Kate editor incorporates several high-impact improvements for programmers and technical users: better Git support, with a branch list that now displays the most recent activity, helping to work with repositories more efficiently. The "Quick Open" dialog allows you to quickly jump to a specific line and column in any file simply by typing :line:column. Support for bracketed paste improves the interaction when pasting code snippets or commands into the integrated terminal.
The Photos app receives exciting visual improvements: it adds a cropping tool, expanding editing options directly from the viewfinder. Touch gestures like pinch to zoom in or out, drag to navigate the image, and swipe to move to the next one are also incorporated, making the experience smoother, especially on touchscreens and mobile devices.
KDE Gear 25.12 improves navigation tools
Konqueror, the veteran browser and file manager, can now export pages to high-quality PDFs, useful for both documentation and archiving. Falkon, the more modern browser, introduces a button to enable or disable the ad blocker, giving you more direct control over your reading experience and performance.
The Matrix-based messaging app NeoChat is also getting improvements: It adds a new page within settings to display keyboard shortcuts, making them easier to use. It also improves support for extensions like Jitsi: you can now see when a meeting is in progress and know when you can start a video call, based on your permissions.
In addition to everything explained here, which includes the official announcement, there are updates in many more applications. You can find the complete list of changes here. here.
KDE Gear 25.12 was released today and will begin arriving in the repositories of the most popular Linux distributions in the coming days.