Downloads
Help Portal: |
Avatar | Bug Fixes | Communication | Community | Glossary | Land & Sim | Multimedia | Navigation | Object | Video Tutorials | Viewer | Wiki | Misc |
Linden Lab Viewers
The following viewer is available on the official Downloads page:
- Second Life Viewer (a.k.a. the official Viewer, regular Viewer, official viewer etc.)
Official Alternate Viewers
When Linden Lab viewer projects are nearing release they will often initially release a Project Viewer, and subsequently a Release Candidate Viewer (marked as 'Release') as they are nearing formal release. Occasionally a Beta Viewer may also be released for a particular project.
- Linden Lab Official:Alternate Viewers
- All the various official alternate viewers are listed here.
- Development Viewer
- Features and fixes that are still warm from the creative fires of development.
Old Releases
The Release Notes pages for many past versions contain links to the corresponding downloads. Note that some of these may be blocked from accessing the Second Life Grid because of their lack of support for new features.
Warning: Past Viewer versions might have known security issues, can be partially or fully incompatible to current server versions and obviously will be lacking newer features. Use them at your own risk. |
Third Party Directory Viewers
Warning: The viewers listed here are not developed nor distributed by Linden Lab. Being listed here means only that the developers of the viewer have represented that they comply with the Policy on Third-Party Viewers and the Second Life Terms of Service. You are responsible for evaluating whether you want to use and share information with them. |
Using third party viewers
You may connect to Second Life using software released by a third-party developer. Linden Lab provides a Policy on Third-Party Viewers to promote a positive and predictable experience for all Second Life Residents. Beware of third-party viewers that are not in the Viewer Directory: they have either declined to self-certify their compliance with Linden Lab policies or been refused for noncompliance with the policies.
Active Full Viewers
These viewers are projects that are updated regularly to track new developments in the Linden Lab viewer, and implement a full graphical environment.
Viewer | Description | Platforms |
---|---|---|
Alchemy | An experimental Second Life™ viewer striving to be at the forefront of stability, performance, and technological advancement in the open-source metaverse viewer field. |
|
Black Dragon |
The primary goal of Black Dragon is to enhance and refine the visuals of Second Life as well as having unique design approaches and features. |
|
Firestorm | The next generation viewer from The Phoenix Firestorm Project, Firestorm is based on the LL V3 LGPL code and offers extensive interface customizability including V1 skin options, feature and option rich with 24/7 support. |
|
Kirstens | A hybrid viewer based on a mixture of official sources and custom code aimed specifically at experienced users, with emphasis on the visuals. |
|
Kokua | Kokua provides releases for PC, Mac and Linux with and without Marine Kelley's RLV together with a broad selection of original features and the best from other viewers.
Kokua aims to be the viewer of choice for RLV users who want Marine Kelley's original implementation with more bells and whistles than Marine's own viewer. |
|
Catznip | Catznip aims to refine and reinvent your window into Second Life. Our focus is stability, usability, privacy and plenty of new original home grown features. It's about taking a fresh look at things and attempting to do them better. |
|
Restrained Love | The RLV enhances your experience when you use it in conjunction with RLV-compatible objects, which are able to restrict the user from detaching items, receiving IMs, hearing chat, teleporting etc. |
|
Singularity | Singularity strives to combine the beloved look and feel of Viewer 1.23 with the latest and greatest of available technology, and to stay compatible with future Second Life changes and features. |
|
Genesis | Genesis is a blazingly fast, high performance 1.23 style viewer for Second Life, offering the very latest features, never seen before in a Legacy viewer. |
|
CoolVLViewer | An improved and expanded v1-UI viewer kept in close sync with Linden Lab's official viewer features. Geared towards performances and stability. The oldest maintained TPV (first release date: 2007-11-16) |
|
Megapahit | This fork is planned to be the shelter for the metaverse refugees, especially those from less supported operating systems |
|
Lovense | Lovense Viewer is a free third-party viewer for Second Life that enables seamless integration with Lovense products. |
Subset Viewers
These viewers omit some aspects of the full viewer functionality.
Viewer | Description | Platforms |
---|---|---|
Radegast | Light-weight feature rich non-graphical client, ideal for situations where full 3D rendering client is less than ideal option, for instance, an office environment, running on low performance computers and similar. |
|
SpeedLight | Pure web Second Life viewer. Supports desktop and all mobile browsers, allows switching between devices. |
|
MetaChat | iOS - TEXT ONLY - Second Life® client. |
|
Mobile Grid Client | Second Life and Open Simulator messaging client for all Android powered devices. |
|
For developers: how to apply to list a viewer in this directory
- Your Second Life accounts must be in good standing, must not be suspended, and must not have been permanently banned or terminated.
- You must have valid payment information on file with us or have been age verified by us.
- Review our Policy on Third-Party Viewers and the Second Life Terms of Service.
- Make sure you and your third-party viewer are in compliance with our policies.
- Open an Application Issue on the Third Party Viewer Github repository and submit it.
Reporting policy violations
If you believe that you have direct evidence that any third party viewer (whether listed in the Third Party Viewer Directory or not) may be in violation of the Second Life Terms of Service or the Policy on Third Party Viewers, you can file a violation report to be investigated.
Other Third Party Viewers
Important: The following viewers have either not applied for or have been denied listings in the Third Party Viewer Directory. |
Whether or not a viewer developer chooses to self-certify by applying for listing in the directory, all viewers connecting to Second Life must comply with the Policy on Third-Party Viewers; listing in the directory is not a requirement.
Note to authors: If you make a viewer available make sure to include platform, version numbers and dates.
Name | Type | First release | Latest Release | Status | W [1] | M [1] | L [1] | i [1] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
#AjaxLife | Text | 2008-09-15 | Inactive | X | X | X | X | |
#Cool VL Viewer | Graphic | 2007-11-16 | 2015-11-21 | Active | X | X | X | |
#Combat Cubed | Graphic | 2010-06-16 | Inactive | X | ||||
#Hippo OpenSim Viewer | Graphic | 2010-04-24 | Inactive | X | X | |||
#MetaPay for iPhone and iPod Touch | Text | X | ||||||
#Milk Release Client | Graphic | 2010-01-20 | Inactive | X | X | |||
#omvviewer-light | Text | 2009-08-25 | Retired | X | X | |||
#Rainbow Viewer / Cool Viewer | Graphic | 2011-07-10 | Inactive | X | X | X | ||
#RealXtend Edition | Graphic | 2008-07-28 | Inactive | X | ||||
#SLiteChat | Text | 2011-04-21 | Inactive | X | X | X | ||
#TEKSTUFF Viewers | Graphic | 2010-04-20 | ? | X | ||||
#Whisper (SlXSLChat) | Text | 2010-05-09 | ? | X | X | X |
Graphical Viewers
Cool VL Viewer
Description
This viewer was created and is maintained by Henri Beauchamp (This viewer was formerly known as the "Cool SL Viewer" and its first public release was v1.18.4.3, released on 2007-11-16). It combines elements of several of the other viewers, as well as extra features, bug fixes and extra patches, all very carefully tested.
It puts emphasis on high UI coherency from one version to the other (meaning no bad surprise for "old timers") while staying in sync with Linden Lab's official viewer features, high stability and reliability, and a high reactivity to new patches and bug fixes provided by the Open Source community.
The Cool VL Viewer is TPV policy compliant. Please see its TPV TOS.
Extra Features
- Reverses many of the unpopular interface changes, restoring separate friends and groups floaters and reinstating the packet loss and bandwidth indicators, the old toolbar and buttons layouts, the old/normal commands layout in the pie menus, the "All(old)" search tab, the old style (name-sortable) "Groups" search tab, the "Fly" button in the movement controls floater, and optionally reinstating the old, more visible, status bar icons and/or tracking dots in the mini-map, and the old chat history floater (without chat input line). Also fixes some UI regressions (missing buttons in some floaters, or visited landmarks tracking in inventory for example).
- Implements the "RestrainedLove" API (formerly known as "RestrainedLife"), based on Marine Kelley's reference patch (switchable and disabled by default).
- Allows to configure the date and time formats to match your locale or personal preferences (including with optional seconds for chat and IM timestamps).
- Allows to wear/remove attachments and clothing items on double-click in inventory.
- Allows to optionally prevent notifications to show and be logged in the main chat.
- Allows to disable typing sounds.
- MUD/MUSH/MUCK/MUX style "poses" (i.e. you can type ":" instead of "/me " to emote), and OOC double parenthesis auto-close (i.e. you can type: "((phone, BRB" and it will show as "((phone, BRB))").
- Allows to hide the "Master volume" when not needed in the panel overlay.
- Allows to build large prims (up to 256m in any or all dimensions) on OpenSim (not on SL, because of server-side limitations).
- Improved friends list floater (with info about what your friends allow you to see: tehri online status and/or their position on the map).
- Improved build tools floater (smaller increments in several parameters, extra "slice" parameter for some prims, transparency up to 100%, check box toggle for drag distance limit, adjustable number of decimals in Object tab for the position/size/rotation parameters, "Align" tool). Also allows to set the "invisible" texture from the texture picker (for invisi-prims).
- Improved texture preview floater (with aspect ratio combo).
- Improved notecard floater (with Edit menu and Search/replace feature).
- Improved mini-map with panning, larger zooming range, specific symbol for avatars above 1024m (work around for a limitation of current server and viewer versions), etc...
- Improved beacons: can filter beacons based on owner (you, others or anyone), can highlight attachments, can dissociate non-object sound sources, can keep beacons "always on" even when the beacons floater is closed.
- Allows to export and import objects you own and created as XML files (for backup and restore purpose, or to transfer objects from one grid to another).
- Allows to connect to all existing grids (and not only LL's) from the login screen.
- Allows network bandwidth up to 10000Kbps.
- Allows to save/compile scripts present in the inventory as Mono scripts.
- Allows to teleport to double-clicked locations on screen.
- Allows to sit anywhere "on the ground".
- Allows to adjust the Z offset (height above the floor) for playing animations.
- Allows to cache the inventory in the background after login (for faster inventory operations).
- Allows to preview animations on your avatar prior to uploading them.
- Implements a group titles floater.
- Implements a radar floater.
- Implements a teleports history floater.
- Implements a "Worn" tab in the inventory floater, and a search/filter by item name, description or creator.
- Implements "speed rezzing" on login and TPs.
- Implements an object "area search" floater.
- Implements spell-checking.
- Implements a resizable text input floater (for para-RPers).
- Implements the newest LSL functions, highlighting them properly (with tooltips) in the script editor and allowing to compile them. Also implements fully llTextBox() and the AGENT_AUTOPILOT flag with llGetAgentInfo().
- Allows to ignore (and not only decline) friendship and calling card offers.
- Allows to change how minimized floaters are stacked (top/bottom, bottom/top, left/right, right/left, fraction of the screen width to use for the stack).
- Shows avatar keys in profile (in "My notes" tab).
- Shows the avatar true height in the appearance floater.
- Renders properly objects worn on the illegal attachment points defined in some hacked third parties viewers.
- Provides Mesh rendering support !
- Provides Mesh upload support !
- Provides Mesh deformer (rigged mesh tailoring) support in OpenSim.
- Provides full support for the new Alpha and Tattoo wearables !
- Provides multi-layered clothes support !
- Provides inventory item links support !
- Provides multiple attachments per point support !
- Provides display names support !
- Full support for the Merchant Outbox !
- Provides navmesh and pathfinding objects support and tools !
- Provides full shared media (AKA "media on a prim") support !
- Provides server-side baking support !
- Provides materials support !
- Provides ribbon particles support !
- Provides fitted mesh support !
- Provides GetMesh2 capability support (i.e. with the new llcorehttp-based mesh data fetching) !
- Provides AISv3 capability support !
- Provides LL's viewer-interesting new objects caching scheme !
- Provides group-ban support !
- NEW: provides full Experiences and XP-Tools support !
- NEW: provides Avatar Hover Height support !
- NEW: provides Marketplace Listings support !
- NEW: provides global clothing layers limit (60 in total instead of 5 for each of the 12 types) support !
- NEW: provides the new mesh uploader/importer code
- NEW: provides CEF3 media plugin support !
- Provides Avatar Physics support.
- Provides the new SL web search engine as an option.
- Provides access to web profiles.
- Provides support for setting the new parcel flags (avatar visibility, sounds playing restrictions).
- Allows to filter (Allow/Deny/BlackList/Whitelist) media and audio streams URLs to protect your privacy against IP snatchers.
- Many bugfixes by Henri Beauchamp, Nicholaz Beresford, Gigs Taggart, McCabe Maxsted and others.
- More minor features and improvements, to be discovered on the website...
- All switchable extra features easily configurable via a "Cool features" tab in the preferences floater.
Links
- Website: The Cool VL Viewer homepage
- Message board: Cool VL Viewer forum
- Linux viewer: see the download section on the Cool VL Viewer homepage for files and installation instructions.
- Windows viewer: see the download section on the Cool VL Viewer homepage for files and installation instructions.
- MacOS X viewer: see the MacOS-X Announcement forum for files and instructions.
- Source code: see the download section on the Cool VL Viewer homepage.
- Screen shots: Key features and screen shots
Version and timestamp
- Current stable version: 1.26.16.0 Date: 2015-11-21
- Status: Active.
Hippo OpenSim Viewer
Description
The Hippo OpenSim Viewer is a modified Second Life viewer, targeted at OpenSim users. It allows building up to a height of 10,000 meters, scaling prims up to 256 x 256 x 256 meters and other exciting features. More specific OpenSim features are under development. The last developer blog commented: Releasing Hippo OpenSim Viewer Version 0.6.3. This release adds a Windows uninstaller and small changes to comply to the Linden Lab Policy on Third-Party Viewers.
Availability Is currently available for Linux and Windows.
Links
- Website: http://mjm-labs.com/viewer/
Version and timestamp
- Version: 0.6.3
- Platforms:
- Binary available for Windows and Linux
- Source available (unspecified)
- Date: April 24, 2010
- Status: Discontinued, website offline.
Meerkat
Goals
- To create a fully GPL viewer (no proprietary dependencies)
- To encourage a community of developers that will submit patches for prompt integration
- To have the freedom to make the sort of changes that Linden Lab has traditionally been unable to integrate (translation patches, refactoring, fixing intentionally crippled features, changes that touch many files)
- To retain compatibility with Linden Lab's grid and protocols, present and future
- To implement a loosely coupled cross-grid functionality that requires no central authentication authority.
Extra Features
- Log out and back in without quitting
- Loosely coupled intergrid teleport -- In Process
- Most of the other changes common to third party viewers
Links
Website: Meerkat Viewer(note: the Meerkat site is down)- Direct download link: Download versions of this viewer
- Source code: svn checkout http://meerkat-viewer.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ meerkat
Version and timestamp
- Version : 0.2.x
- Date : September 6, 2009
- Status : Discontinued, website offline. Source and binary downloads still available on google code (see above).
Nicholaz Edition
Description
These are Windows viewer based on SL builds with a focus on stability, usability and performance (see Installation.txt for homebrew disclaimer). Mac and Linux variants are available through other open sourcers (links on the website).
Extra Features
- Improved stability.
- Lower memory footprint.
- GUI redesigns.
- Workarounds for common annoyances. (Group IM Filtering, "Release Key" button, etc.)
- see this entry for an overview of different versions.
Links
- Website: Nicholaz Beresford on Blogspot
- Direct download link: Download versions of this viewer
- Source code: Look at the download site for the source-xxx-zip files in the respective folders and see the readme.txt inside the archives
Version and timestamp
- Date: September 7, 2009
- Status: Discontinued
Onrez Viewer
Description
The Onrez viewer was made by the Onrez company in connection with a Second Life themed story on the high tech forensics based TV show "CSI: New York".
Extra Features
- A back and history button for teleports
- In-viewer web browsing.
Comment The source code for this viewer is closed source.
Version and timestamp
- Status : Discontinued, download no longer available.
Rainbow Viewer / Cool Viewer
Description
Based on the offical SecondLife sourcecode licensed under GPL2, this speedy Metaverse Client can connect you to a huge variety of exciting Virtual Worlds! It incorporates a lot of improved, new, up- and backported features and fixes that make the fast and rock stable RV/CV the client of choice for many users.
This viewer includes many patches and changes from a lot of different people and sources which I am very grateful to be able to use. Credits are given to everyone I know, in case I missed someone I sincerely apologize.
Rainbow / Cool are TPV compliant.
Thanks to Henri Beauchamp who laid the foundation for this viewer with his Cool SL Viewer. Special thanks to Winter Ventura for the Cool Viewer logo and Jacek Antonelli and Peter Stindberg for the Rainbow Viewer logo :). And to all the others who helped and supported me, especially the people involved and behind Imprudence!
Some incomprehensive list of features
A major improvement is an up-to-date OpenGL implementation that especially helps users plagued by ATI's Catalyst drivers but also leads to measurable improvements of overall graphics performance by 30...100% compared to the official viewer; depending on your system. Rainbow Viewer features the current user interface whereas Cool Viewer spots the leaner cleaner and more configurable legacy UI. It's all about choice :).
- New 1.22.12.0 code baseline
- CV's legacy User interface with a clean, simple and userfriendly layout or Rainbow Viewers current official UI, you choose!
- Improved Graphics rendering, especially for ATI users (measured > 1/3 faster than the official viewer)
- Alpha and Tattoo Layer support from Second Life Viewer 2.x
- Updated tested list of Virtual World grids
- Marine Kelley's RestrainedLove (off per default)
- Full Adult Compliance
- Redesigned and "up-ported" search functionality, probably the best search in any viewer nowadays
- Enhanced Breast Physics
- Temporary texture and animation upload
- Better inventory search for content, description and creator
- Low lag radar and AV management tools
- Viewer skinning
- Object and Shape export/import, limited to creator
- Bulk permission editing
- Last owner display to track content theft
- "Worn" tab in inventory
- Double click to wear attachments
- Enhanced building tools
- Flexible Sculpties
- Large Prims (currently only for Opensim grids due to SL limitations)
- Maximized Network Bandwidth
- Flexible Grid selection at login for SL and all OpenSims
- Teleport History and speedy doubleclick teleport
- Avatar UUID in profiles
- Features tab in Preferences for easy switching of features
- Optimized latest OpenJPEG 1.3
- A large number of other goodies and stability fixes that improve your overall experience. Please check the Release Notes for details.
Links
- Website: Rainbow Viewers for Virtual Worlds
- Direct download link: Binary versions on Google Code
- Source code: Sources on Github
Version and timestamp
- Rainbow Viewer 1.22.12 R7
- Rainbow Viewer Cool Edition (Cool Viewer) 1.22.12 R13
- Rainbow Viewer Netbook Edition Version 1.2 (speedy pre-Windlight 1.19.0.5)
- Date: July 10, 2011
- Status: Active
RealXtend Edition
Description
The realXtend viewer is a heavily modified version of the Linden Lab's Second Life client by a partnership of two Finnish companies, ADMINO technologies and LudoCraft.
The successor to the realXtend viewer is Naali (release 0.4.0 on 21st January 2011, download from http://code.google.com/p/realxtend-naali/downloads/list).
Extra Features
* Second life compatibility mode for use in SL and Opensim worlds * Teleports between realXtend and Secondlife
Links
- Website: http://www.realxtend.org/
- Direct download link: http://www.realxtend.org/downloads.html
- Source code: http://sourceforge.net/projects/realxtendviewer/
Version and timestamp
- Version: 0.4.2
- Date: September 24, 2009
- Status: Discontinued, replaced by Naali.
Combat Cubed
Description
This client is aimed mostly at the SL Military, but sports quite a few interesting improvements that make it worth taking a look at.
Originally known as Vertical Life.
Major Features
- Enhanced Look & Feel, for example flexible camera movement
- Prototype Script API, secure and parallel
- Slimmed down for FPS combat
- Identification, Friend versus Foe, mostly under the hood now but soon exposed
Links
- Splash: http://bit.ly/cXOcDX
Version and timestamp
- Version: 1.0
- Date: June 16, 2010
- Status: Active
TEKSTUFF Viewers
Description
The TEKSTUFF viewers are created to enable Youtube movies on TEKSTUFF media screens inside Second Life. The TEKSTUFF viewers are slight modifications of already available viewers like the regular SL 1.23.5 viewer and the Emerald 1634 viewer. Apart from that, the Emerald based viewer is fixed so it can be used in Opensim grids as well.
Links
- Web presence: http://www.tekstuff.net/
TODO
- Make a Linux viewer
- Make a Mac OS viewer
Major Features
- All the functionality of the viewer it was based upon (Linden Lab 1.23.5 or Emerald 1634)
- Will allow you to view Youtube movies on TEKSTUFF media screens
- The Emerald based viewer can also be used in OpenSim grids (texture loading is fixed)
Version and timestamp
- Version: 1.23.5 (Linden Lab & Emerald)
- Date: April 20, 2010
- Status: Discontinued
Text-Only Viewers
AjaxLife
Description Browser based Second Life client, created by Katharine Berry. The only web-browser client which made it a lifeline for residents who could not use a full graphical viewer, or who could not download other text-only clients because of limitations such as corporate firewalls.
(No longer working)
Links
- Website:
http://ajaxlife.net/
Version and timestamp
- Version: 0.6.1.2
- Date: May 21, 2010
- Platform: Platform-Independant
- Status: Inactive
omvviewer-light
A Text client for the 3D Metaverse
Description omvviewer-light is a text client for the 3D Metaverse including SecondLife, written from Scratch (but using the libomv library for protocol handling). It's GUI is created in Gtk# which is cross-platform making this the only current Text client that is still active and cross platform. Tested on Linux (32/64 bit) and Windows (not 64-bit windows).
Features To many to list here in detail please see the project page below but in summary, Full inventory control, Full Chat/IM/Group IM's. Object search and interaction. Realtime local maps. Parcel displays. Read and Edit NoteCards and Scripts. View profiles. Friends Lists etc .....
Links
- Website: Project page
- Source code: Source details
Version and timestamp
- Date: August 25, 2009
- Version: 0.48.0.6
- Status: Active
Whisper (SlXSLChat)
A light-weight yet feature rich text-only Second Life client
Description Whisper is a text-only Second Life client that comes in two parts. The client is written in Java (so it can run on many platforms). The client connects to a "transport", which is written in C# and uses LibOpenMetaVerse. The idea behind this architecture is that if you don't like the client, you can write your own and not have to worry about implementing the Second Life protocol yourself. The entire project is open source and published under the GPLv3 licence.
Features
- Public chat
- Instant messaging
- Group chat
- Search/join/leave groups
- Search for avatars
- Image retrieval
- Profile retrieval
- Notifications / popups as you would get in Second Life (e.g. group notices, balance changes, inventory offers)
- Teleportation (home, to area within current sim, to nearby avatar)
- Nearby avatar tracking on map of Sim
- Autopilot navigation to nearby avatars
- URL highlighting
- Encrypted traffic between client and transport
- Transport can be run anywhere, the client connects via TCP/IP
- Client only sends MD5 hashed password to transport
- On April 20, 2010, SlXSLChat has rebranded to “Whisper”.
Links
- Website: Whisper
- SourceForce Project Page: Project Page
Version and timestamp
- Date: May 9, 2010
- Version: 1.3
- Status: Active
SLeek
First text only viewer ever, mentioned for completeness, not actively maintained anymore. MetaBolt is based on SLeek.
SLiteChat
A Lite IM/Chat Text-only Client for Second Life
Description SLiteChat (pronounced "slight-chat") is a completely open source text-only IM/chat client for use with Second Life. Use it to talk to your friends without having to load up all of those heavy graphic goodies. Useful for those at work times.
Features
- Communicate in-world with people on your friends list. Full adding/removing and search for Residents supported.
- Group chat is supported (however at this writing you cannot leave a group or search for to join).
- Local chat and IM history is supported.
- Can log into other grids.
Links
- Website: Project page
- Source code: Source details
MetaPay for iPhone and iPod Touch
Send L$ with a simple to use and free iPhone App.
Description
MetaPay is a simple and fun way to send Linden Dollars from your iPhone and iPod touch for FREE! Out with friends and want to pay your part of the tab but have no cash? Use MetaPay to send L$ to your friends in Second Life® instead. Or use it to send L$ for any in-world use without firing up the full Second Life® client.
Links
- Free in the AppStore: Open in iTunes