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Changes and updates
Update Tor Browser to 13.5.3.
Update Thunderbird to 115.15.0.
Update OnionShare from 2.2 to 2.6, which includes a feature to create an anonymous chat room.
Fixed problems
Keep the firewall on even during shutdown. (#20536)
Stop reporting an error when starting an old Tails USB stick with a system partition of 2.5 GB. (#20519)
For more details, read our changelog.
Known issues
Shim SBAT verification error
If you get the following error message when starting your regular Linux operating system, then it means that your Linux operating system is outdated.
Verifying shim SBAT data failed: Security Policy Violation
Something has gone seriously wrong: SBAT self-check failed: Security Policy Violation
Edit your UEFI settings to disable Secure Boot.
With Secure Boot disabled, your regular Linux operating system should start again.
To learn how to edit the BIOS or UEFI settings, search for the user manual of the computer on the support website of the manufacturer.
Update your regular Linux operating system.
Try to enable Secure Boot again in your UEFI settings.
If your regular Linux operating system still doesn't start, then disable Secure Boot again. You can try to enable Secure Boot again in the future.
It might take several months for your Linux distribution to provide updates before you can enable Secure Boot again.
Get Tails 6.7
To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage
Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 or later to 6.7.
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 6.7 on a new USB stick
Follow our installation instructions:
The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.
To download only
If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.7 directly:
Highlights
On our first month back from vacation, we continued making it easier to recover from common failure modes without requiring technical expertise:
we drafted an implementation of our design to detect, report, and repair corruption of the Persistent Storage
we finished implementing our plans to improve the detection of and recovery from low-memory situations. Going from prototype to implementation, this work was a great example of the 90-90 rule in action: the first 90% of the work consumed the first 90% of our time, and the remaining 10% accounted for the other 90% of our time
Over the past year, we have been close downstream of the Tor Project's design and implementation of Arti. This month, we reached a significant milestone in our collaboration: we prepared a prototype of Tails in which multiple applications use Arti.
freiheitsfoo, one of our longest supporters, renewed their sponsorship of Tails! Welcome aboard for another year of resisting censorship and surveillance online!
Releases
In Tails 6.5, we brought:
an updated Tor Browser with cool letterboxing improvements, and the latest Debian (12.6)
repairs to first-boot partitioning that many users were facing issues with after Tails 6.4
fixes to connecting via mobile broadband, LTE, and PPPoE DS. This has been a persistent issue in the Tails 6 series so far.
To know more, check out the Tails 6.5 release notes and the changelog.
Metrics
Tails was started more than 779,262 times this month. That's a daily average of over 25,946 boots.
[[!meta Error: cannot parse date/time: Mar, 06 giu 2023 14:00:00 +0000]]
Between 2021 and 2023 Tails, Tor, and the Guardian Project partnered to organize training and usability tests in Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil. Our goals were to:
Promote our digital security tools and train human rights defenders in the Global South.
Learn from their experiences and needs to help us prioritize future work.
Improve the usability of our tools based on their feedback.
Usability tests and improvements
We conducted 4 rounds of in-person moderated usability tests in Mexico, Brazil, and Ecuador to identify usability issues in the features of Tails that are most important to new users:
Installation
Tor Connection
Persistent Storage
The DesignOps tools that we used to organize these usability tests are all publicly available on our website.
The detailed methodology for each of the usability tests is explained in the corresponding GitLab issues, linked below.
Installation
In December 2021 in Mexico, we learned that the tools for new users to install Tails worked well, but several people got lost while navigating the instructions on the website.
Based on these findings, we restructured our installation pages and fixed 30 usability issues on the website.
We tested these improvements in August 2022 in Brazil and confirmed that the new installation pages were much easier to follow. Only 1 out of 4 participants had trouble installing Tails on their own. All participants could start Tails and connect to the Tor network easily.
Details:
Usability tests of first-time use in Mexico (#18074)
Usability tests of first-time use in Brazil (#18784)
Tor Connection
In July 2021, we released the Tor Connection assistant to completely redesign how to connect Tails to the Tor network. The new assistant is most useful to people who are at high risk of physical surveillance, under heavy network censorship, or on a poor Internet connection.
In August 2022 in Brazil, we tested the usability of Tor Connection when accessing the Tor network is blocked by censorship or by a captive portal.
Despite the many usability issues that we fixed since the first release of Tor Connection, 3 test participants out of 4 failed to connect when access to the Tor network was blocked.
Since then we fixed 14 usability issues affecting Tor Connection: to understand better why connecting to Tor fails, to make it easier to configure a Tor bridge, and to make it easier to sign in to a network using a captive portal.
- Usability tests of Tor Connection (#18762)
Archivio Persistente
In March 2023 in Ecuador, we tested the usability of the new Persistent Storage, which was released in Tails in December 2022.
We didn't find any serious usability issues in the new Persistent Storage. The fact that people don't have to restart to create and enable the Persistent Storage and that their data (eg. Wi-Fi password) is stored on creation were huge improvements compared to the old Persistent Storage.
- March 2023: Usability tests of the new Persistent Storage (#18648)
Trainings
Through our combined efforts we reached 47 organizations and trained 433 human rights defenders on our family of tools based on the Tor network. For Tails only, we conducted 8 workshops and trained 84 people on using Tails: journalists, activists, feminists, lawyers, and human rights defenders.
The material used for these Tails workshops is available on our website in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Assistants to the workshops were able to start Tails on all their PC computers but had more frequent issues with Mac computers.
From what is already possible to do with Tails, people were most interested in using Tails to:
Handle sensitive data, for example, medical data of abortion patients, sensitive documents from political trials, or field studies from human rights violations. That said, not all journalists thought that they were manipulating data that was sensitive enough to require a tool like Tails. Sometimes it was hard to draw the line on when to use Tails and when not.
Investigate sensitive topics online, either for journalistic purposes, medical purposes, or when making safe travel plans.
Have a secure OS when using other people's computer, either when traveling or when people don't have the means to have their own computer.
From what is not possible yet to do with Tails, people were most interested in:
Doing online meetings and using mobile messaging apps like Signal and Telegram from Tails.
Using a VPN instead of Tor for speed and access to more websites.
We included both of these objectives in our 3-year product strategy. You can track our progress in the GitLab issues related to #19472.
Changes and updates
Update Tor Browser to 13.5.2.
Update Thunderbird to 115.14.0.
Update many firmware packages. This improves the support for newer hardware: graphics, Wi-Fi, and so on.
Detect new types of errors when resizing the system partition fails (the first time Tails is started) and report the following error message.
Something went wrong when starting your Tails USB stick for the first time:
resizing the system partition failed
It will be impossible to create a Persistent Storage or apply automatic upgrades.Affected users can try to install Tails again or use a different USB stick.
Fixed problems
Persistent Storage
Increase the maximum waiting time to 4 minutes when unlocking the Persistent Storage before returning an error. (#20475)
Made the creation of the Persistent Storage more robust after starting a Tails USB stick for the first time. (#20451)
Prevent the Persistent Storage settings from freezing after opening a link to the documentation. (#20438)
Prevent Additional Software from crashing when installing virtual packages. (#20477)
Networking
Fix connecting to the Tor network using default bridges. (#20467)
Allow enabling multiple network interfaces again. (#20128)
Tails Cloner
- Remove 30 seconds of waiting time when installing by cloning. (#20131)
For more details, read our changelog.
Get Tails 6.6
To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage
Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 6.0 or later to 6.6.
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 6.6 on a new USB stick
Follow our installation instructions:
The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.
To download only
If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.6 directly:
Today, we added documentation on our website to install Dangerzone in Tails.
When you receive untrusted documents, for example, email attachments, Dangerzone allows you to convert them into safe PDFs before opening.
Dangerzone is particularly useful for journalists who might receive dangerous documents from anonymous sources or download them from the Internet.
Dangerzone is an essential tool and is built by great people. It was first written by Micah Lee to protect investigative journalists while working at The Intercept. Dangerzone is now maintained by Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit that protects public-interest journalism. Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras are on its Board of Directors.
It's totally the kind of software that aligns with our mission. The only reason why we are not including Dangerzone in Tails by default is because Dangerzone is too big and not available in Debian.
So, we collaborated with Alex Pyrgiotis from Freedom of the Press Foundation to make it as easy as possible to install Dangerzone in Tails as Additional Software. The setup requires using the command line, but, after that, Dangerzone will install automatically every time you start Tails.
Dangerzone will allow more investigative journalists to use the safe environment that Tails provides when manipulating sensitive documents.
It's also the first time that we recommend installing a 3rd party package that is not available in Debian. We know that a lot of software that would be useful for our users is not readily available in Debian. If this first experiment is successful, we might document more such packages.
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)
Per ulteriori dettagli, leggi il nostro changelog.
Known issues
It is impossible to connect using the default Tor bridges already included in Tails. (#20467)
To use a default bridge in Tails 6.5, scan the QR code of one of these bridges:
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.
Se non puoi eseguire un aggiornamento automatico o se Tails non si avvia dopo un aggiornamento automatico, ti preghiamo di provare a eseguire un aggiornamento manuale.
To install Tails 6.5 on a new USB stick
Segui le nostre istruzioni d'installazione:
The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.
Per scaricare solamente
If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.5 directly:
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
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)
Per ulteriori dettagli, leggi il nostro 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.
Se non puoi eseguire un aggiornamento automatico o se Tails non si avvia dopo un aggiornamento automatico, ti preghiamo di provare a eseguire un aggiornamento manuale.
To install Tails 6.4 on a new USB stick
Segui le nostre istruzioni d'installazione:
The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.
Per scaricare solamente
If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 6.4 directly:
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.