Changes and updates

• Make installation with Tails Cloner 30 seconds faster. (!1588)

• Update Tor Browser to 13.5.1, including improved letterboxing.

• Update Debian to 12.6.

Fixed problems

• Fix preparation for first use often breaking legacy BIOS boot and creation of Persistent Storage. (#20451)

• Fix language of Tor Browser when started from Tor Connection. (#20318)

• Fix connection via mobile broadband, LTE, and PPPoE DSL. (#20291, #20433)

For more details, read our changelog.

Known issues

• It is impossible to connect using the default Tor bridges already included in Tails. (#20467)

  If you habitually use default bridges, try to connect without bridges: this is just as safe. If this fails, configure a custom bridge.

Get Tails 6.5

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage

• Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 or later to 6.5.

• If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails 6.5 on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

• Install from Windows

• Install from macOS

• Install from Linux

• Install from Debian or Ubuntu using the command line and GnuPG

To download only

If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.5 directly:

• For USB sticks (USB image)

• For DVDs and virtual machines (ISO image)

Highlights

• The European summer is here, and with it are summer holidays! We took some time off for some quality rest and recreation. How we vacationed: music festivals in Milan, hiking in the Alps, the Sierra Nevada, and the High Sierra, and biking in the Pyrenees. We do love the mountains! ⛰️

• But before we went away for some quality R&R, we continued making it easier for Tails users to recover from the most common failure modes without requiring technical expertise:

  • We finalized a design to detect corruption of the Persistent Storage on a Tails USB stick, reporting it to users, and repairing it.

  • We made incremental progress towards warning Tails users when they have low available memory. We don't detect all the problematic cases yet but, when we do, GNOME gently notifies the user.

• We have been working on a new user journey for backups. In June, we finished designing all interfaces and solicited feedback. The proposal was well received by 2 volunteers who have contributed code related to backups.

Releases

📢 We released Tails 6.4!

In Tails 6.4, we brought:

• even stronger cryptographic protections, as Tails now stores a random seed on the Tails USB stick
• fixes to make unlocking the Persisted Storage smoother
• more reliable installation of Additional Software, due to a switch to using HTTPS addresses instead of onion addresses for the Debian and Tails APT repositories

To know more, check out the Tails 6.4 release notes and the changelog.

Metrics

Tails was started more than 775,377 times this month. That's a daily average of over 25,946 boots.

New features

Random seed

Tails now stores a random seed on the USB stick to strengthen all cryptography.

Having a secure random number generator is critical to some of the cryptography used in Tails, for example, in the Persistent Storage, Tor, or HTTPS.

This random seed is stored outside of the Persistent Storage so that all users can benefit from stronger cryptography.

Changes and updates

• Switch to using HTTPS addresses instead of an onion addresses for the Debian and Tails APT repositories. This makes the Additional Software feature more reliable.

• Update Tor Browser to 13.0.16.

• Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.12.

• Update Thunderbird to 115.12.0.

Fixed problems

• Fix more issues when unlocking the Persistent Storage. (#20020, #20344, #19913)

• Fix connecting to a mobile broadband network on some hardware. (#20291)

• Enable again the PDF reader of Thunderbird that we disabled in Tails 6.3 for security.

• Improve the error message of Tails Cloner when the target USB stick cannot be unmounted because it is being used. (#19253)

• Fix the homepage of Tor Browser when using the New Identity feature. This removes the error message Tor Browser blocked your homepage from loading. (#20381)

• Remove the redundant dialog when unlocking a VeraCrypt volume using the Unlock VeraCrypt Volumes utility. (#20281)

For more details, read our changelog.

Get Tails 6.4

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage

• Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 or later to 6.4.

  You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.

• If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails 6.4 on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

• Install from Windows

• Install from macOS

• Install from Linux

• Install from Debian or Ubuntu using the command line and GnuPG

To download only

If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.4 directly:

• For USB sticks (USB image)

• For DVDs and virtual machines (ISO image)

Highlights

• We met IRL! It has been close to 1.5 years since we devised our 3-year strategy goals. We reflected on our progress, concluded that we had a mixed bag of results, and emerged with a good sense of what's needed to be done. And all this while discovering the wonders of vegan Francesinha and wine 🌞

• Thanks to our volunteer translations teams, Tails' language diversity continued improving alongside the language support we added in Tails 6.2.

  Our French, Spanish, and Catalan teams reported more than 50 small issues on the content of our website, typos, inconsistency with the tools, and accessibility issues. We fixed all of them. In the process of this lovely synergy, we also identified opportunities to make this collaboration through Weblate smoother in the future.

• And, we also completed a bunch of home improvement projects:

  • We added an animation when expanding the collapsible sections in our warnings page. Changes should be more noticeable now. (Gitlab issue)

  • We also added a "Security/Fixed" pill on security advisories that are fixed. As an example, see our advisory on "Possible remote attack on onion services".

  • We also fixed the display of SVG images when JavaScript is disabled. Now, we are using PNG by default and adding some JavaScript to enhance images back to SVG when useful. (Gitlab issue)

  • We replaced the CSS framework Bootstrap on our website with custom and modern CSS code. The most challenging page to convert was our donation page, and the resulting code is 20% smaller.

Releases

📢 6.3 is out!

In Tails 6.3, you will find:

• improvements for configuring new printers
• Restart later as the default button at the end of an automatic upgrade; earlier it was Restart now
• and as usual, an updated Tor Browser

To know more, check out the Tails 6.3 release notes and the changelog.

Metrics

Tails was started more than 824,834 times this month. That's a daily average of over 27,495 boots.

Highlights

• Spoiler alert! We are working on friendlier ways to back up Persistent Storage. We are working on a new flow that adapts Tails Cloner to the different stages of making backups (setting up, reminding, and updating) and integrating it with the Persistent Storage settings.

• We continued investing in making our infrastructure and services more robust, usable, and secure:

  • We continued making the development at Tails more pleasurable. Our test suite is much kinder to Tails developers now.

  • We fixed all the broken links on our website (hundreds!). We have now implemented a monthly automated check for new broken links.

  • Our new server is now breaking into a sweat! We deployed new internal services and made good progress in creating redundancies of our website and email systems.

• We have a new sponsor: Start Small Foundation! The generous (our largest ever, too) donation significantly prolongs our financial runway in the short to medium-term. We plan to use this platform to keep improving our infrastructure, and build on this platform to bring exciting, new functionality to Tails!

Releases

📢 We put Tails 6.2 out in the world!

Tails 6.2 carries:

• support for 21 new languages on the Welcome Screen!
• the final set of improvements for better detection of hardware failures on Tails USB sticks
• updates to Tor Browser and Tor client

To know more, check out the Tails 6.2 release notes and the changelog.

Also, we're always looking for volunteers to help increase Tails's language diversity. If that sounds like it could be you, do consider contributing to the Tor Project Weblate.

Metrics

Tails was started more than 821,380 times this month. That's a daily average of over 27,379 boots - the highest this year.

Changes and updates

• Add back translations in Romanian and Malayalam.

• Update Tor Browser to 13.0.15.

• Disable temporarily the PDF reader of Thunderbird to protect from a security vulnerability related to the handling of fonts in PDF files. (CVE-2024-4367)

  You can still open PDF files in the Document Viewer from Thunderbird.

• Make Restart later the default button, instead of Restart now, at the end of an automatic upgrade.

Fixed problems

• Fix the configuration of new printers when some printers were already configured in the Persistent Storage in Tails 5.23 or earlier. (#20271)

• Remove the long delay between the Welcome Screen and the GNOME desktop when MAC address anonymization fails. (#17813)

For more details, read our changelog.

Get Tails 6.3

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage

• Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 or later to 6.3.

  You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.

• If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails 6.3 on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

• Install from Windows

• Install from macOS

• Install from Linux

• Install from Debian or Ubuntu using the command line and GnuPG

To download only

If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.3 directly:

• For USB sticks (USB image)

• For DVDs and virtual machines (ISO image)

Highlights

March spotlighted many vulnerabilities in FOSS infrastructure globally, sparking some welcome conversations around the sustainability requirements of FOSS projects.

• First, there was the RFDS Intel CPU vulnerability. The fixed CPU firmware shipped in Tails 6.1 addresses the vulnerability!

• Then, March ended with the xz/liblzma almost-apocalypse that the world avoided, including Tails users.

In March, we continued investing in the long-term sustainability of Tails:

• We improved the reliability of our test suite. With @segfault, we have been working extra hard to make our automated test suite more robust. We are going to keep working on improving the experience of development work at Tails in the coming months.

• We made good progress in improving redundancies for our most essential services. We added backend capacity, and deployed fallback options for our website. This had been a priority since earlier this year, when our website went down.

Releases

📢We put Tails 6.1 out in the world!

Tails 6.1 carries:

• updated Tor Browser and Thunderbird

• improvements to Tails Cloner: it can now unmount all filsystems on the target device. Since Tails 6.0 auto-mounts partitions on plugged removable media, this is quite an important fix!

• fixes to Video

To know more, check out the Tails 6.1 release notes and the changelog.

Metrics

Tails was started more than 873,028 times this month. That's a daily average of over 28,162 boots - the highest this year. Yet!

New features

We added 21 new languages to the Welcome Screen: Albanian, Armenian, Basque, Bengali, Bulgarian, Estonian, Galician, Icelandic, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Malay, Norwegian Nynorsk, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Swahili, Thai, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

Some of these languages only have little of our custom Tails applications translated, but other applications included in Tails are better translated.

If you want to translate Tails better in these languages or translate Tails into other languages, you can contribute to the Tor Project Weblate.

New languages will be included automatically in future versions of Tails as soon as 25% of strings are translated.

Changes and updates

• Update Tor Browser to 13.0.14.

• Update the Tor client to 0.4.8.11.

• Rename the localization section of the Welcome Screen as Language and Formats.

• Make Upgrade later the default option in the dialog opened by Tails Upgrader.

• Include more errors in the detection of read and write errors on the USB stick.

Fixed problems

• Fix a reliability issue that disabled Wi-Fi on some hardware. (#20045)

• Disable SysRq keys, which allowed crashing a Tails session from the keyboard and bypass the lock screen. (#20334)

• Disable Speculative Store Bypass to improve our mitigation of Spectre v4. (#20335)

• Improve the error message when creating a Persistent Storage is impossible. (#20328)

For more details, read our changelog.

Get Tails 6.2

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage

• Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 or later to 6.2.

  You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.

• If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails 6.2 on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

• Install from Windows

• Install from macOS

• Install from Linux

• Install from Debian or Ubuntu using the command line and GnuPG

To download only

If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.2 directly:

• For USB sticks (USB image)

• For DVDs and virtual machines (ISO image)

Changes and updates

• Update Tor Browser to 13.0.13. This includes the changes brought by 13.0.12.

• Update Thunderbird to 115.9.0.

Fixed problems

• Fix Onion Circuits. #20233

• Fix Welcome Screen frequently showing a "Welcome to Tails!" is not responding error. #20236

• Fix Videos showing an error message during playback. #20243

• Fix problems with changing the passphrase of the Persistent Storage. #20217

• Tails Cloner can now install and upgrade to devices with multiple mounted partitions. #20149

• The Persistent Storage settings now display all enabled custom Persistent Storage features. #19267

• Mitigate the RFDS Intel CPU vulnerabilities. #20274

For more details, read our changelog.

Get Tails 6.1

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage

• Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 to 6.1.

  You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.

• If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails 6.1 on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

• Install from Windows

• Install from macOS

• Install from Linux

• Install from Debian or Ubuntu using the command line and GnuPG

To download only

If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.1 directly:

• For USB sticks (USB image)

• For DVDs and virtual machines (ISO image)

Highlights

Despite the bonus day this year, February flew by pretty quickly! Here's what we were up to:

• We ended February more resilient and collaborative than when we started. We have new tooling to make it easier to work on shared documents, and use XMPP more effectively. We also worked to strengthen our front-end services and set up the back-end infrastructre to build redundancies into our services.

• In 2021 and 2022, our usability tests with human rights defenders in Mexico and Brazil prompted several improvements in the installation instructions for Tails. Fixing 16 of the identified usability issues were remaining, and we fixed them all this month. These tests, experiences, and improvements will greatly shape our future trainings.

• We finished updating our website for Tails 6.0. Check out the rewritten recommendation on secure deletion. 

Releases

📢 Tails 6.0 is out! 

Tails 6.0 is the first version of Tails based on Debian 12 ("bookworm"), and is the sexiest, slickest, and sleekest Tails yet. It brings:

• several important security updates: more robust error detection for the Persistent Storage, protections against malicious USB devices, and Diceware word lists in Catalan, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish

• some more usability features: new light modes—dark, night, and a combination of both; easier screenshoting and screencasting; and easier Gmail configuration in Thunderbird

• and, updated version of most of the applications in Tails

To know more, check out the Tails 6.0 release notes and the changelog. Thank you to everyone who helped us out by testing the release candidate.

Metrics

Tails was started more than 806,714 times this month. That's a daily average of over 27,817 boots.