Minecraft 1.7.2 has been published in the launcher! Get it now!

The Update that Changed the World. This update includes 1.7 and 1.7.1

What’s new?

• Added lots of new biomes!
• Added “AMPLIFIED” world type
• Added Acacia and Old Oak wood types
• Added Stained Glass
• Added Packed Ice, Red Sand, Podzol
• Added a bunch of new flowers, including double-height flowers and grass
• Added more types of fish
• Fishing rods can be enchanted
• Achievements are now world specific
• Gaining achievements now announced to other players
• Added a few new achievements
• Servers can now have a “server-icon.png” that is displayed in the multiplayer list
• You can see who’s online before joining, just hover the player count number in the server list
• New /summon command
• Added Command Block minecart
• Links in chat are now clickable
• Click on somebody’s name to send a private message
• Added a bunch of new graphics options
• Added some shader tests (click on the “Super Secret Settings” a couple of times…)
• Biome placement has been improved, and oceans are smaller
• Portals to the Nether can now have different shapes
• Fishing is now more interesting
• Maps in item frames are now extra big
• The achievement screen is zoomable
• Preparations have been made to offer name change in the future
• You can now have multiple resource packs loaded at the same time
• Resource packs can now hold sound effects
• Servers can recommend resource packs
• Network code has been rewritten
• Sound manager has been rewritten
• Many many bug fixes…
• Removed the Rose flower
• Removed Herobrine

Download Links:

Minecraft for Windows

Download Minecraft.exe. Place it anywhere you want, then run it.

Minecraft for Mac OS X

Download Minecraft.dmg. Unpack and place Minecraft in your /Applications folder.

Minecraft for Linux / Other

Download minecraft.jar. The jar is executable and might work as-is. If you run into memory issues, try launching it with java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -cp minecraft.jar net.minecraft.LauncherFrame, also please use Sun’s JVM.

Multiplayer Server

If you’re running on Windows and just want to set up a server easily, download Minecraft_Server.exe and run it.

If you want to run the server on any other OS or without GUI it’s a bit more involved. First make sure you can use java from the command line. On Linux and Mac OS X this should already be set up but on Windows you might have to tinker with the PATH environment variable. Download and run minecraft_server.jar with java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui.