Version 3.3.0-MB of Sphider has been released. As far as indexing and searching functionality is concerned, this version is IDENTICAL to version 3.2.1.
What HAS changed is that the database has been altered to include the use of foreign key restraints. With the database thus being able to maintain key relationships on its own, some admin functions have been simplified as the code no longer needs to maintain the relationships. Database maintenance functions are accelerated and more reliable.
The BEST way to implement this newest version is either with a clean install, or to empty the database, upgrade, and re-index. It IS possible to upgrade in place, but the larger the database, the larger the risk. The upgrade process will attempt to back up the data only, delete the tables, recreate the tables with the foreign key restraints, then restore the data. This has been tested numerous times, but as previously mentioned, the more data there is, the higher the risk of data loss.
There is a file, “README_FIRST.” You are definitely encouraged to do just that for the simple reason that not all MySQL installations are created equal.