14 DAY TRIAL // Just a few moments ago, the development team behind the Tails amnesic incognito live Linux kernel-based operating system, which was used by the famous whistleblower Edward Snowden to stay hidden online, announced the release of Tails 1.8.
According to the release notes, Tails 1.8 is a small update for the popular, Debian-based anonymous Live CD, improving a few applications and core components, and fixing various issues reported by users since the previous release.
Among the new features implemented in Tails 1.8, we can mention the addition of the Icedove open-source software as the default email client, replacing Claws Mail. For those who are not in the loop, Icedove is a rebranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird.
The fact of the matter is that Icedove was already available on Tails, but it wasn't installed as the default email client. The Tails devs also managed to update the Icedove packages from version 31.8 to 38.4.
"Claws Mail will be removed from Tails in version 2.0 (2016-01-26). If you have been using Claws Mail and activated its persistence feature, follow our instructions to migrate your data to Icedove," said the Tails devs in today's announcement.
Tails 1.8 also updates the TOR Browser to version 5.0.5, Tor to version 0.2.7.6, I2P to version 0.9.23, Enigmail to version 1.8.2, and Electrum to version 2.5.4, which should not work as expected in Tails.
Download Tails 1.8 right now from Softpedia. The live system is distributed as an ISO image that contains software packages optimized only for 32-bit hardware architectures, but you can use the Live CD on any computer.