14 DAY TRIAL // The first Release Candidate of Tails 1.5, the amnesic incognito Live CD distribution used by Edward Snowden to browse websites anonymously and stay invisible online, was announced on August 6, 2015.
According to the release notes, Tails 1.5 RC1 is here to add major new features like the TOR Browser 5.0 Alpha 4 anonymous web browser software based on Tor, the addition of a 32-bit GRUB EFI bootloader, which was tested on various Intel Baytrail systems, Unsafe Browser as the default LAN browser instead of Tor Browser.
There are also numerous security fixes implemented in Tails 1.5 RC1, such as a patch for a panic mode during MAC spoofing failure, Tails Installer improvements, removal of the launchpad-integration abstraction from the Pidgin AppArmor profile, AppArmor policy enhancements through aliases, and restriction of access to the global /tmp directories for the Tor Browser.
"You can help Tails! The first release candidate for the upcoming version 1.5 is out. Please test it and see if it works for you," reads the announcement. "If you find anything that is not working as it should, please report to us! Bonus points if you first check if it is a known issue of this release or a longstanding known issue."
Numerous core components were updated
In addition to the new features and security fixes mentioned above, the first Release Candidate of Tails 1.5 adds numerous updated core components, among which we can mention Linux kernel 3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u2, bind9/dnsutils/friends 9.8.4.dfsg.P1-6+nmu2+deb7u6, cups-filters 1.0.18-2.1+deb7u2, ghostscript 9.05~dfsg-6.3+deb7u2, libexpat1 2.1.0-1+deb7u2, libicu48 4.8.1.1-12+deb7u3, libwmf0.2-7 0.2.8.4-10.3+deb7u1, and openjdk-7 7u79-2.5.6-1~deb7u1.
Tor has been updated as well, this time to version 0.2.6.10-1~d70.wheezy+1+tails1, and there are numerous other under-the-hood improvements. Download Tails 1.5 RC1 right now from Softpedia. Please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release piece of software and that it is not suitable for production environments, but only for testing purposes. Detailed upgrade instructions from Tails 1.4.1 can be found in the release announcement.