What Is Mangler?

Mangler is an open source VOIP client capable of connecting to Ventrilo 3.x servers. It is capable of performing almost all standard user functionality found in a Windows Ventrilo client. Mangler is developed and maintained by Eric Kilfoil. Other current contributers include:

  • Haxar (wishes to remain anonymous)
  • humbaba (wishes to remain anonymous)
  • FWishbringer/Felyza (not sure if he wishes to remain anonymous or not)

Promote Us!

 The easiest way to help out is to promote us. Blog posts and links to our website are always helpful for search engine rankings. Digg or other aggregators are nice, too. Submitting articles to gaming websites to get the word out helps as well. We’re not PR people…. we just like writing code :) .

Why?

There are 100% open source alternatives to Ventrilo. We highly recommend Mumble for those that are looking into setting up this type of server. Mangler exists to bridge the gap for people who don’t have that choice. Ventrilo is the de facto standard for guild/clan conversation and Linux doesn’t have an implementation. The official Ventrilo client for Linux has been “in development” since 2005. Since it seems they have no intention of releasing a Linux client, we have taken up the task.

Many people ask if a server is the next step. Our answer is no. If you’re setting up a server, you should check out Mumble. The Ventrilo protocol includes a call home feature that checks the server’s license every time you connect. These tactics are anathema in open source ideology.

Previous Contributors

  • Daniel Sloof – Daniel was a tremendous help at the beginning of the project up through the first release. He helped reverse engineer a number of packet types in the protocol. He has since moved on to other projects, but his work is greatly appreciated.

Other Contributors

Mangler is an extension of previous work at bringing Ventrilo to Linux. None of this would be possible without Luigi Auriemma’s open source code to encrypt and decrypt Ventrilo packets.

Also, Michael Sierks and Cris Favero put a lot of effort into deciphering a good chunk of the protocol.