14 DAY TRIAL // The Tails development team announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the first Release Candidate (RC) version of the upcoming Tails 1.4 amnesic incognito Live CD distribution that has been used by Edward Snowden to stay invisible online and browse websites anonymously.
According to the release notes, the biggest features of Tails 1.4 RC1 is the inclusion of the recently released TOR Browser 4.5 anonymous web browser, Tor 0.2.6.7, Linux kernel 3.16.7-ckt9-3, cURL 7.26.0, LibreOffice 3.5.4, OpenJDK 7 Update 79, OpenLDAP 2.4.31-2, dpkg 1.16.16, PPP 2.4.5-5.1, I2P 0.9.19-3, and GStreamer 0.10.23-7.1.
Additionally, the Windows 8 browser theme has been updated to support the I2P and Unsafe browsers, Torbutton's "Tor Network Settings..." context menu entry is now hidden by default, the syslinux packages have been updated to support booting the Tails Live CD on Chromebook C720-2800, and Tails Upgrader supports localization.
"Like in the Tor bundled with the Tor Browser, we patch it so that circuits used for SOCKSAuth streams have their lifetime increased indefinitely while in active use," was stated in today's announcement. "This currently only affects the Tor Browser in Tails, and should improve the experience on certain websites that otherwise would switch language or log you out every ten minutes or so when Tor switches circuit."
Tails 1.4 RC1 now includes Debian 8 Jessie APT source
Another interesting feature implemented in Tails 1.4 RC1 is the addition of Debian 8 Jessie APT source. Moreover, Mozilla Firefox will no longer crash when the Orca screen reader and magnifier is enabled, GNOME's default keyserver will no longer interfere with Tails own OpenPGP keys, set_simple_config_key() now works correctly, and a shortcut for the Gedit text editor has been added to gpgApplet's context menu.
Among other changes, we can mention that the Tor logo is now hidden by default in the Tor Launcher, Tails 1.4 RC1 ships with Tor Browser's bundled Tor Launcher, the mutt and msmtp packages are no longer installed, Vietnamese support in LibreOffice has been improved, support for more printer models has been added, and support for offline OpenPGP key backup has been implemented through paperkey.
Last but not least, the deprecated log() instance in tails-unblock-network has been removed, as well as the obsolete #i2p-help IRC channel from the Pidgin configuration. You can download Tails 1.4 RC1 right now from Softpedia, but please keep in mind that this is a pre-release version that contains unresolved issues.