Changes
Notable user-visible changes include:
- Tor: upgrade to 0.2.2.35-1.
- Iceweasel
- Install Iceweasel 9.0 from the Debian Mozilla team's APT repository.
- Update Torbutton to 1.4.5.1-1.
- Support viewing any YouTube video that is available in HTML5 format.
- Use Scroogle (any languages) instead of Scroogle (English only) when booted in English. Many users choose English because their own language is not supported yet; let's not hide them search results in their own language.
- Install the NoScript Firefox extension; configure it the same way as the TBB does.
- Disable third-party cookies. They can be used to track users, which is bad. Besides, this is what TBB has been doing for years.
- Do not transparently proxy outgoing Internet connections through Tor. Instead drop all non-Torified Internet traffic. Hence applications has to be explicitly configured to use Tor in order to reach the Internet from now on.
- Software
- Upgrade Vidalia to 0.2.15-1+tails1. This version will not warn about new Tor versions (this is handled by Tails security check instead).
- Upgrade MAT to 0.2.2-1~bpo60+1.
- Upgrade VirtualBox guest software to 4.1.6-dfsg-2~bpo60+1, built against the ABI of X.Org backports.
- Upgrade I2P to 0.8.11; the start script (which was broken in Tails 0.9) is now fixed.
- Install unar (The Unarchiver) instead of the non-free unrar.
- Install Nautilus Wipe instead of custom Nautilus scripts.
- Hardware support
- Upgrade Linux kernel to 3.1.6-1.
- Upgrade to X.Org from squeeze-backports.
- Install more, and more recent b43 firmwares.
- Upgrade barry to 0.15-1.2~bpo60+1.
- Internationalization
- Add basic language support for Russian, Farsi and Vietnamese.
- Install some Indic fonts.
- Install some Russian fonts.
- Add Alt+Shift shortcut to switch keyboard layout.
- Miscellaneous
- Support booting in "Windows XP-like camouflage mode".
- Do not fetch APT translation files. Running apt-get update is heavy enough.
- Add MSN support thanks to msn-pecan.
- Add custom SSH client configuration:
- Prefer strong ciphers and MACs.
- Enable maximum compression level.
- Explicitly disable X11 forwarding.
- Connect as root by default, to prevent fingerprinting when username was not specified.
- Replace flawed FireGPG with a home-made GnuPG encryption applet; install a feature-stripped FireGPG that redirects users to the documentation, and don't run Seahorse applet anymore.
- Blank screen when lid is closed, rather than shutting down the system. The shutdown "feature" has caused data losses for too many people, it seems. There are many other ways a Tails system can be shut down in a hurry these days.
- Fix bug in the Pidgin nick generation that resulted in the nick "XXX_NICK_XXX" once out of twenty.
- Pre-configure the #tor IRC discussion channel in Pidgin.
- Reintroduce the htpdate notification, telling users when it's safe to use Tor Hidden Services.
- Various htpdate improvements.
Plus the usual bunch of minor bug reports and improvements.
See the online Changelog for technical details.
I want to try it / to upgrade!
See the Getting started page.
Known issue
The memory erasure on Tails shutdown cannot guarantee that all memory in the 2 GB to 4 GB region is wiped. The improvements made in Tails 0.10 should at least make the situation better than previously.