InfraRecorder 0.53: Release History and the Real Changelog

InfraRecorder has exactly one current version: 0.53, released on 1 September 2012. There is no 0.54, no 2026 edition, and no secret update. This page gives the real history from 0.30 in 2006 to the final release, the actual seven-item 0.53 changelog, and a field guide to fake-version sites.

InfraRecorder began as Christian Kindahl’s Google Summer of Code 2006 project and grew into one of the best-known free CD/DVD burners for Windows. It is written in C++, uses the cdrtools/cdrkit family as its burning backend, and is released under GPL version 3 (it moved to GPL v3 at version 0.46 in 2008 — ignore any SourceForge sidebar that still says GPL v2; that field is stale). On the SourceForge project page it holds a rating of 4.7 out of 5 from 101 reviews. The official site is still online, but its news archive ends in 2011 and its copyright line ends in 2012 — the shape of a project that stopped, not one that moved elsewhere.

From 0.30 to 0.53: the shape of the history

The first release, 0.30, appeared on 10 September 2006. Through the late 2000s the program added the features people still use it for: data, audio and mixed-mode projects; ISO and BIN/CUE image recording; dual-layer DVD support; disc copying; multisession import; rewritable-disc erasing; and saving audio tracks to common file formats. Version 0.42 added DVD-Video project support. Version 0.46 (8 November 2008) moved the source code to GPL version 3. Version 0.50 (2009) is the release most often misquoted today: it added support for displaying Blu-ray and HD-DVD capabilities of a drive in the device information panel. It did not add Blu-ray or HD-DVD burning, and no later version did either.

Releases continued into the early 2010s at a slowing pace, and the line ends at 0.53. The official Git repository (github.com/kindahl/infrarecorder) shows its last commit on 17 October 2016 — a merge of a Slovenian translation pull request, not new burning code. The 0.53 release commits themselves are from 1 September 2012. In other words: even the code history’s final activity was a translation, four years after the final release, and there has been nothing since.

The real 0.53 changelog — all seven items

The complete official changelog entry for version 0.53.0.0 (1 September 2012), from the official changelog file, is deliberately unglamorous. If a site shows you a different 0.53 changelog — with DVD-Video mastering updates, new drive-detection engines or 2026 features — it invented it. Get the verified files themselves from our download page. The real seven items are:

  1. Fixed write speed detection issue.
  2. Fixed bug where maximum write speed would be used instead of the selected one when burning DVDs.
  3. Fixed bug in creation of UDF and ISO9660 file systems containing many files and folders.
  4. Relaxed ISO9660 duplicate file naming algorithm.
  5. Added support for non-standard character sets in ISO9660 file systems.
  6. Various minor GUI changes.
  7. The space meter will now automatically adjust if a blank DVD is inserted.

Read that list for what it is: maintenance fixes to write speeds, file-system creation and the interface. That is consistent with a mature, winding-down project. It also explains two practical things in our other guides — why write-speed behaviour is a known theme in the troubleshooting hub, and why the honest pitch for 0.53 today is ‘small, free and understood’, not ‘new’.

How to tell a fake ‘new version’ site

  • Any version number above 0.53 is fake. ‘InfraRecorder 0.54’, ‘0.60’, ‘2024/2025/2026 edition’ — none exist in the official changelog, on SourceForge, or on the official site.
  • Check the file. The real installer is ir053.exe, 4,151,536 bytes, SHA-256 8cee83f7f489a6aef4218a953b87b1c22d6a93c966e79275c8cb2abe830d0731. A different name (for example a supposed irsetup.exe), size or hash means a different, unverified file.
  • Check the claims. Blu-ray burning, Windows 11 as an officially supported system, macOS or Linux editions, and built-in MP3 encoding without the separate lame.irc plug-in are all claims the real 0.53 does not make.
  • Check the date logic. A ‘changelog’ describing features from years after 2012 for a program whose developer stopped releasing in 2012 is fabrication, however professional the page looks.

Why the honest history helps you

Knowing the real history protects your PC and sets your expectations. You will not waste time hunting for an update that does not exist, you will not install a repackaged file chasing one, and you can judge 0.53 fairly: excellent for the legacy jobs in our Windows 7, XP and Vista guide and, with verification, usable for basic work on newer Windows as our Windows 11 guide explains. When a job needs maintained, modern software, the history tells you to look at the alternatives without guilt. Final version 0.53 is not a flaw in this story. Pretending there is a newer one is.

A compact timeline to keep

  • 10 September 2006: version 0.30, the first release, from the Google Summer of Code project.
  • 2007–2008: the feature set fills out — image burning including ISO and BIN/CUE, dual-layer DVD support, disc copying and multisession work.
  • 8 November 2008: version 0.46 moves the source code to GPL version 3, the licence that still applies today.
  • 2009: version 0.50 adds displaying Blu-ray and HD-DVD drive capabilities — information only, never burning.
  • 1 September 2012: version 0.53, the final release, with the seven maintenance fixes listed above.
  • 17 October 2016: the last commit in the official Git repository, a Slovenian translation merge — the code history’s final word.

Pin that timeline against any claim you meet elsewhere and most fabrications fall apart on dates alone. A feature ‘added in 2018’ cannot belong to a program whose repository went quiet in 2016 and whose last release was 2012. A manual describing a different interface cannot describe 0.53. And a download whose hash does not match the verified values on our download page is not made trustworthy by a plausible version number. History, in this case, is a security tool as much as a story — which is why this page cites the changelog itself rather than retelling what other download sites say it contains.

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