Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) is a Debian-based distro that differs from all other Linux distributions in that it is a live system solely focused on privacy. It is intended for security paranoids looking for maximum personal security and anonymity on the Internet. But, of course, this has its drawbacks.
For example, because Tails is pre-configured to run everything through the Tor network, the speed of operations requiring a network connection is much slower than on a regular Linux distro.
Today, the Tails Project has announced the general availability of Tails 5.8 with yet another dose of novelties. So, let’s have a look at them.
Tails 5.8 Highlights
In Tails 5.8, Wayland replaced the deprecated X.Org display system. In other words, the distro now defaults to Wayland. So, if you’re asking what triggered this switch, the answer is simple. The Tails developers favor Wayland as a more secure alternative to the old X.org.
The other significant change involves the operating system’s Persistent Storage capabilities.
The Persistent Storage hasn’t changed much since its first release in 2012 because the code was hard to modify and improve. But, we learned from users that the Persistent Storage could do a lot more for you if it had more features and was easier to use.
Official Tails 5.8 Announcement
So, after two years of hard work, Tails 5.8 comes with a complete redesign of the Persistent Storage. Users no longer need to restart the system after creating the Persistent Storage or whenever they enable a new feature.
Furthermore, this new application allows you to change the password for your Persistent Storage. And finally, if you don’t already have one, you can create one straight from the Welcome Screen.
Since Tails 4.8, the Unsafe Browser app has been disabled by default because of a security flaw. However, with the switch to using Wayland by default, this is no longer an issue. Therefore, it is now safe to reenable the Unsafe Browser app.
The Tor network lies at the heart of the Tails, and the Tor browser is its significant component. So, in Tails 5.8, the browser has received an update to v12.0.1, and Tor itself has been updated to v0.4.7.12. On top of that, the devs bumped Thunderbird’s email client version to 12.0.1.
Under the hood, Tails 5.8 has the Linux kernel 5.10.0-20, which improves compatibility with modern devices such as graphics and Wi-Fi.
You can refer to the announcement for detailed information about all changes in Tails 5.8. In addition, you can download the latest Tails release from the official website.
Finally, remember that the distro is not intended to be a daily driver OS. In other words, Tails isn’t something you’ll want to use if you’re a Windows or macOS user looking to switch to Linux for everyday jobs.
