14 DAY TRIAL // Tails, a live system that aims to preserve your privacy and that helps you use the Internet anonymously, has been upgraded to version 1.1 Beta 1 and is now ready for testing.
Tails is a distribution based on Debian and TOR technologies that aims to keep its users as anonymous as possible. It gained a lot more visibility after Edward Snowden said that he used exactly this Linux distribution to hide his tracks. The developers are now implementing more changes and fixes that should ensure it becomes even more secure.
Users have been asked to test the new version of Tails, especially now that most of the packages have been upgraded and that so many new things have been integrated.
Tails 1.1 Beta 1 is now based on Debian 7 (Wheezy), thousands of packages have been upgraded, LibreOffice is now being used instead of OpenOffice, the write access has been fixed and the distributions is now able to boot via udisks, Tor has been updated to version 0.2.4.22, the Windows XP camouflage has been replaced with an experimental Windows 8 one, and UEFI boot support has been implemented.
The developers say that with this new version users can boot Tails from USB sticks on recent hardware, and especially on Mac. Even better, users now have access to features such as persistence and automatic upgrades.
Also, Linux kernel 3.14 has been implemented from Debian unstable for improved hardware support, the integration with VirtualBox has been improved (only works with the 32-bit kernel), seahorse-nautilus has replaced seahorse-plugins, the BookletImposer PDF imposition toolkit is now installed by default, GtkHash and its Nautilus interface have been added, the hledger accounting program has been implemented, and the Tails Greeter's help window now adapts to the screen resolution.
There are still a number of problems that have yet to be fixed. For example, persistence may be disabled after upgrading to 1.1 Beta 1, emergency shutdown isn't triggered when removing the boot media or pressing the power button before logging in with Tails Greeter, the internal links crash Yelp when browsing the bundled Tails documentation, some GNOME notifications are truncated on the right, and the Windows 8 camouflage still has some rough edges.
A complete changelog can be found in the official announcement. You can download Tails 1.1 Beta 1 right now from Softpedia.
Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.