Can you tell us about who you are and what you do?

I live in a small town in France where we have been fighting against a nuclear project for years.

How did you discover Tails and start using it?

I've been using Tails for about 5 years. I was involved in autonomous and anti-nuclear protests and someone told me about Tails. When I started being involved in this local struggle full-time, I started checking my activist email addresses only from Tails.

My usage grew over time. Now, when I'm here, I start my computer on Tails more often than not. It's my default OS here. I have all my info.

In which situations do you decide to use Tails or not use Tails?

I make a fairly simple distinction: everything related to my activism.

If it's an email address that I use for the struggle, I only check it from Tails. If I meet people through my activism, I give them one of these email addresses.

If I'm doing things related to my personal life, for administrative purposes, or for entertainment, I use my encrypted Debian instead.

It's a split that works pretty well, even though sometimes it gets tricky when friends and activists start to mix up. Even when I'm not involved in the struggle on a daily basis, I check my Tails every 2–3 days.

How is Tails being used around you?

I have my personal computer here, but many people don't have one and only Tails USB sticks. It's really convenient for people who are nomads, who travel a lot, or who don't want to invest in a computer. We have collective computers with Tails that they can use.

But, there are limitations, for example, that Tails uses Tor all the time and that the Unsafe Browser doesn't work very well. So, some people also have USB sticks with Debian Live to do administrative work. But, most people have a Tails USB stick instead of their own computer. That's where they have their files and check their emails.

We suffered from a lot of repression. Now, it's a baseline practice to encrypt all your data. When we train people on how to encrypt their data, it's easier to teach them Tails than how to encrypt their computer, for example, because they would have to reset all their data and that takes much more time.

Rather, when we start communicating with people and ask them to store everything encrypted, we give them a Tails USB stick. We ask them to only check these communications from Tails. It's easier from a training point of view.

The problem with a theoretical training is that it's rarely put in practice. If you give people a USB stick, there is more chance.

Do you have concrete examples where using Tails was very important for you?

Because our collective computers can only be used with Tails, it brings peace of mind to the people who use them occasionally. It's easier to lend them shared computers. There are a lot of people passing by here. It also brings me peace of mind to know that people won't leave personal or compromising documents. They are amnesic. Even if we're raided by the police someday, we don't have to clean these computers regularly.

Someone told me that, one time, the cops didn't even bother confiscating amnesic computers. They had already taken a lot of stuff, so they were not interested in the computers that had no data. At least, they didn't lose the computers.

Sometimes, I lost USB sticks and I was cool because they were encrypted.

Are there other aspects in which Tails improved your security?

Because Tails is easy to share, even people with low technical abilities are able to use it. For the security of a group, what matters is the lowest security level within that group. Thanks to Tails being accessible, we are able to ensure that some communications never leave Tails or an encrypted Debian.

Which tools do you find the most useful in Tails?

I often work on brochures, so I often use LibreOffice, Inkscape, and GIMP.

I use BookletImposer, but it's soon going to be removed from Tails because it's not maintained anymore. We use it to reformat brochures for printing. We all added PDF Arranger as additional software. I think that we already reported this issue to Tails.

I use KeePassXC a lot, obviously.

Thunderbird.

I haven't used the sound and video editing tools much. When I have to do sound editing, I use my other computer, but I should try. I use Shotcut outside of Tails because someone recommended it to me.

What are the problems or limitations to your use of Tails?

The fact that we ask to only check certain email addresses from Tails or Tor sometimes creates communication problems in the collective. Some people who might be less involved stop checking their Tails after some time. We lost some contacts this way. Unless people have a recurring need, after some time it makes less sense for them to take the time to switch to Tails. Nobody can live entirely from Tails.

I don't use the Unsafe Browser very often, because I'd rather start on my personal computer. But, I've heard that it's easier for people to use another computer, for example, a Debian Live with Firefox and a VPN, than to use the Unsafe Browser when they don't need to use Tor.

I'm not even sure how the Unsafe Browser works. Does it have some kind of minimal VPN? Even when I do administrative work, I try to use a VPN that goes through France. If there is no protection at all in the Unsafe Browser, I wouldn't use it.

The less-technical people that we train on Tails, often have 2 small issues: the fact that there is no Wi-Fi icon in the top-right corner at first and no shutdown icon in the top-right corner as well.

Which communication tools do you miss in Tails? For example, you invited me on Mumble, but it didn't work, so we ended up calling each other on Signal.

We usually manage to make Mumble work from Tails. It's one of the rare tools with which we can do voice calls from Tails and manage to write guides for. But, as you could see, it's a bit random. You have to find a Mumble server that works.

Some people install Signal in Tails. It's really not easy. I've heard that it even makes Tails crash.

We have a big problem with all voice calls. It's really hard to make them go through Tor. We do most of our voice calls from Signal, and so from smartphones. Smartphones are still an important tool for calls and real-time communications. It's a shitty situation because not everybody has a smartphone and smartphones are tracking us constantly.

Within our group, we prefer using only Tails to communicate, but whenever we have to communicate with other people, at some point, we stop using Tor because almost no tool for voice calls works with Tor.

Which improvements or new features would you like to see in Tails?

Having PDF Arranger when BookletImposer isn't available anymore. It would be easier for everybody who prints brochures if it was included in Tails by default.

A friend of mine uses XMPP quite a lot, so replacing Pidgin with something better. We tried Dino for some time. I have added Gajim to my Tails. These are always older versions, but that's Debian. No way around it.

In our battle to limit the use of smartphones in our struggles, we need tools that allow us to do instant messaging and voice calls. Tools that work both on Tails and smartphones so we can organize better with people who use smartphones.

I don't know anybody who uses Pidgin, for example. I'm not even sure whether it's still included...

Also, you need to set up an admin password to use a scanner, but not a printer. It would be useful if we could use a scanner without an admin password. A lot of drivers for printers are already installed in Tails, but not that many drivers for scanners, and many models don't work with Tails.

You mentioned installing new tools in Tails, how has the Additional Software feature worked for you?

Additional Software works well. They load in the background...

With Gajim, if I want to explain to other people how to use it, I have to explain how to change persistence.conf to store the OMEMO keys. It's not enough to install Gajim. You also have to check what needs to persist. It's more work and it's not intuitive. And, every application is different, so that's complicated.

I try not to install too much additional software. Could this slow down the USB stick? I never tested the limits or noticed any slowdown.

I know that the people who install Signal often have problems, but that's because they install Flatpak and do advanced tricks. The guide to installing Signal is pretty complex.

Is there anything that you miss in the Persistent Storage?

I don't think so... It depends on the USB stick.

Right now, I have a 32 GB USB stick. At some point, I had a lot of data in my Tails and tried to switch to a 128 GB stick. It got much slower, especially the time to get to the Welcome Screen and unlock. I'm not sure about how this relates to the size of the stick... Sometimes, it depends on the quality of the USB stick, but this one was not low-cost.

So I went back to the 32 GB USB stick. Now I'm careful about not going beyond 32 GB. If I need more storage space, I rather use an encrypted USB stick on the side. I don't know if that's a real thing or a superstition.

I should do more tests. In theory, the 128 GB USB stick was faster than the 32 GB.

Otherwise, the Persistent Storage works fine for me.