We are happy to announce the first beta for Jaybird 4.

We'd really appreciate it if you take the time to test this version of
Jaybird with your applications. Bug reports about undocumented changes
in behavior are appreciated. Feedback can be sent to the Firebird-java
mailing list or reported on the issue tracker
http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/browse/JDBC.

Jaybird 4 is - compared to Jaybird 3 - an incremental release that
builds on the foundations of Jaybird 3. The focus of this release has
been on further improving JDBC support and adding support for the new
data types and features of Firebird 4.

The main new features are:

* Wire encryption support (backported to Jaybird 3.0.4)
* Database encryption support (backported to Jaybird 3.0.4)
* Authentication plugin improvements
* Firebird 4 DECFLOAT support
* Firebird 4 extended numeric precision support
* Firebird 4 time zone support
* JDBC RowId support
* JDBC DatabaseMetaData.getPseudoColumns implemented
* JDBC DatabaseMetaData.getVersionColumns implemented
* Improved JDBC function escape support
* New JDBC protocol prefix jdbc:firebird:
* Generated keys support improvements

Jaybird 4.0.0-beta-1 is for testing purposes only, and not intended for
production use.

See also:

* Jaybird 4.0.0-beta-1 release notes:
https://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/drivers_documentation/java/4.0.0-beta-1/release_notes.html
* Jaybird downloads: https://www.firebirdsql.org/en/jdbc-driver/
* Instructions for Maven:
https://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/drivers_documentation/java/4.0.0-beta-1/release_notes.html#maven