TailsOS

Tails, or "The Amnesic Incognito Live System", recently released the latest version of its privacy-focused secure Linux distro, Tails 4.21, with various changes, bug fixes and improvements including an update to Tor Browser 10.5.4, an update to Thunderbird 78.12 and a fix for a bug in Tails Installer that enabled the deletion of Persistent Storage when doing a manual upgrade. With Tails 4.22 scheduled for release on September 7, the Tails team is asking users to contribute to Tails by testing the release candidate for Tails 4.22 by the end of August. 

What's New in 4.22~rc1?

Tails 4.22 will allow users to manually set their correct time zone and clock. This helps users to work around a long- standing issue of Tails not being able to connect to Tor when obfs4 bridges are being used and the computer has a hardware clock that is set to a time zone that is east of UTC. Also, Tails 4.22 will allow users to save bridges to Persistent Storage so the bridges do not need to be reentered every time Tails is restarted.

Get Tails 4.22~rc1

Upgrade Your Tails USB Stick & Keep Your Persistent Storage

If you are running Tails 4.19 or later, you can upgrade like this:

1. Start Tails and set an administration password.

2. Connect to the network and make sure Tor is connected successfully.

3. Run this command in a _Terminal_: echo TAILS_CHANNEL=\"alpha\" | sudo tee -a /etc/os-release && \ tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper Enter the administration password when asked for the "password for amnesia".

4. After the upgrade is applied, restart Tails and choose **Applications ▸ Tails ▸ About Tails** to verify that you are running Tails 4.22~rc1.

Download Tails 4.22~rc1

Download and install Tails 4.22~rc1 as usually. All the data on this USB stick will be lost. Don't install Tails 4.22~rc1 on any USB stick that already has a Persistent Storage, upgrade instead.

You can also directly download 4.22~rc1 as a USB image or an ISO image.

What Should I Test in Tails 4.22~rc1?

The Tails team is particularly interested in feedback on if Tails successfully connects to Tor using bridges when the correct time zone and clock are set from within Tor Connection assistant, and if bridges are properly saved to and restored from Persistent Storage when the Tor Bridges feature is enabled. If anything is unclear, confusing, or not working as you would expect, they encourage you to send your findings and feedback to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We want to hear about your experience testing 4.22~rc1. Let's connect on Twitter! Happy testing!