A new update for this Linux distribution has landed

Jan 10, 2016 17:33 GMT  ·  By

Tails, a live operating system that aims to preserve users’ privacy and that helps people use the Internet anonymously, has been upgraded to version 18.2 and is now ready for download.

The Tails operating system is based on Debian, and it employs TOR technologies to keep users anonymous. This distro has been around for quite some time, but it rose to fame after whistleblower Edward Snowden said that he took advantage of it to remain hidden from the authorities and to make sure that, if captured, they couldn’t get the data.

Since he didn’t get caught and it’s not clear whether the US government knew about his plans, the mere fact that he mentioned it made Tails famous. By the looks of things, the backing of Edward Snowden didn’t affect the way Tails is developed, and the distribution seems to get updates at the same speed and consistency.

Tails 1.8.2 is just a maintenance release

Most of the Tails releases are impressive and usually bring a large number of updates package and various new features. Apparently, the developers are now focusing more on the upcoming 2.0 version, and they chose to only push some minor updates for this branch/

"Using Tails on a computer doesn't alter or depend on the operating system installed on it. So you can use it in the same way on your computer, a friend's or one at your local library. After shutting down Tails, the computer can start again on its usual operating system," reads the official website.

According to the changelog, the Tor Browser has been updated to version 5.0.7, and a number of other packages have received various security patches, including foomatic-filters, libxml2, icedove, Samba, the Linux kernel, Git, and OpenSSL.

A complete changelog can be found in the official announcement. You can download Tails 1.8.2 right now from Softpedia. Also, keep in mind that Tails 2.0 is expected to land on January 26.