14 DAY TRIAL // The Tails development team announced today the release and general availability of the Tails 3.4 amnesic incognito live system, also known as the anonymous live system.
Tails is a Debian-based live Linux system designed with a single purpose in mind, to hide all your online activity from the prying eyes of the government. For that, it relies on the latest TOR and Tor Browser technologies by allowing users to connect to the Tor anonymous network.
The Tails 3.4 release is here a week earlier than expected due to the recently disclosed Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities that affect billions of devices. It's powered by the latest Linux 4.14.12 kernel, which includes patches for Meltdown attacks, and partially mitigates the Spectre issue.
"This release fixes many security issues and users should upgrade as soon as possible. In particular, Tails 3.4 fixes the widely reported Meltdown attack, and includes the partial mitigation for Spectre," reads today's announcement.
Downloaded Debian packages are no longer deleted after installation
Among some of the enhancements implemented in Tails 3.4, we can mention that the operating system no longer deletes downloaded Debian packages after they're installed to sustain the persistence feature of APT Packages, and a fix for a slow boot issue.
Additionally, it addresses an issue that prevented certain Debian packages to install properly with the Additional software feature, and updates the uBlock Origin ad-blocker extension to make its settings dashboard work again and restore its icon in Tor Browser.
Without any further ado, you can download Tails 3.4 right now through our website, but please keep in mind that two known issues are present in this release, affecting the documentation, which doesn't open in Tor Browser, and the graphical splash screen, which disappears during boot.