Few days ago a new update was announced for the current stable branch of Tails 4.x, this being the new version Tails 4.3, in which include only bug fixes and updates of the system components. Of these, the new Linux kernel 5.4.13 stands out, as well as the corresponding updates to the Tor network and its web browser.
For those who still do not know this Linux distribution, I can tell you something about it. Tails is a Linux distribution is based on Debian, but it stands out from the other distributions that take Debian as a base since what makes it special is that it forces all the outgoing connections from it to the Tor network so is an excellent option to preserve privacy.
What's new in Tails 4.3?
With the release of this new version of Tails 4.3 several of the system components were updated, of which we can highlight the inclusion of Linux kernel 5.4.13 (the previous version included 5.3), Tor 0.4.2.6 and VirtualBox Guest Additions 6.1.2.
For the part of the new version of Thunderbird 68.4.1, in this se include several improvements and above all solutions to some security errors critics. This new version has a better response when setting up an account for a Microsoft Exchange serverIt now offers IMAP / SMTP if available, better detection for Office 365 accounts.
And it also fixes an issue related to attachments with one or more spaces in their names cannot be opened in some circumstances.
As for one of the most popular elements of the distribution which is the browser Tor, this was updated to the new version Tor Browser 9.0.5, which is synchronized with the Firefox 68.5.0 ESR code base, which removed 11 vulnerabilities of which 7 issues collected under CVE-2020-6800 could lead to the organization of malicious code execution.
The complement NoScript was updated to version 11.0.13 and fixed some LLVM reproducibility issues.
Regarding the bugs resolved in the distribution, it is mentioned that when installing updates, problem with progress indicator resolved and the window was accidentally closed while applying the update.
In addition to highlighting the inclusion of the package, it includes a trezor package with a command line client implementation for hardware wallets of the same name that provide cryptocurrency key storage.
Download Tails 4.3
Si you want to try or install this new version of this Linux distribution on your computer, You can obtain the image of the system which is already available from its official website in its download section, link is this.
The image obtained from the download section is a 1,1 GB ISO image capable of working in live mode.
Requirements to install Tails on our computer
If you want to install this system on your computer you must have at least these requirements to be able to execute it without problems:
- Either an internal or external DVD reader or the ability to boot from a USB stick.
- Tails requires a 86-bit x64-64 compatible processor: IBM PC compatible and others, but not PowerPC or ARM so Tails does not work on most tablets and phones.
- 2 GB of RAM to work without problems. Tails is known to work with less memory, but you may experience strange behavior or crashes.
How to update to the new version of Tails 4.3?
For those users who have an older version of Tails installed and want to upgrade to this new version. They should know that the direct upgrade to Tails 4.3 can be done directly from Tails 4.0, 4.1 or 4.2.
While for users who are still in the 3.xxx branch, they must first go to version 4.0 (although it would be advisable to perform a clean installation of Tails 4.3). For this they can make use of their USB device that they used to install Tails, they can consult the information to carry this movement on their computer In the following link.