Created in 2009 and joined the Tor project in September 2024, Tails is a portable operating system that aims to protect you against surveillance and censorship. It's free and open source and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
To use Tails, you must first download it on a USB stick that has a minimum of 8GB. It can take about an hour for the whole process of downloading and installing the software. The instructions are easy to follow, so you should have no problems, but there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube if you need a visual breakdown. Otherwise, once that’s complete, you are all set to use Tails.
How Tails works is that you must shut down your computer and insert the USB stick. This will start Tails instead of your usual operating system. When using Tails, everything that you do goes through the Tor network, which it encrypts and anonymizes your connection through three relays. This allows you to bypass censorship and surveillance, avoid tracking, changes your identity, and leaves no trace on your computer. While I wasn't able to test Tails prior to this writing, I have it downloaded and hope to better understand it's inner workings in a few weeks.
While it is an incredible piece of software you can use to protect your privacy, as they state, it's not magic. Tails has limitations, and it doesn't pretend to protect you from everything. To have the safest experience, you should familiarize yourself with Tails and take other proper steps to ensure your privacy.
If you have a history of using Tails, please feel free to let me know in the comments.
Until next time, and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate!
Monique🔐
Like ZorinOS, Tails is a Debian-based Linux distro that uses the APT package manager and GNOME interface with the added layers of Tor only connectivity.
This post is perfect timing for me - I just set up ZorinOS on a USB stick today to try it on an old Windows laptop with a dead internal drive. Good to know about Tails as a more private option!