I'm running Unraid 7.2.3 and got the notification to update to 7.2.4 and is asking me to "Verify to Update", which is new. I've searched for any announcement for this specific change but the closest I can find is this blog entry which doesn't call out this change explicitly.

I'm rather disappointed, one of the biggest allures of Unraid was being "old school" software where you payed and is yours. While I understand this may be needed for business reasons in 2026 is hard not to have a negative reaction when you are asked to login or something that you didn't have to do so and payed for.

Is there a way to get updates without login or connecting my Unraid instance to my Unraid account?

As long as you have a valid paid-for licence you can always download the zip file for a release and then use the Manual update method.

This was because of a bug in 7.2.3, but like mentioned, you can still do a manual update.

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/system-administration/maintain-and-update/upgrading-unraid/#manual-downgrade-or-upgrade

thank you, that resolved it!