1. Releases
  2. Code
  3. Documentation and website
  4. Hot topics on our help desk
  5. Infrastructure
  6. Funding
  7. Outreach
  8. On-going discussions
  9. Translations
  10. Metrics

Releases

The following changes were introduced in Tails 3.14:

  • Enable all available mitigations for the MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) attacks and disable SMT (simultaneous multithreading) on all vulnerable processors to fix the RIDL, Fallout and ZombieLoad security vulnerabilities.

  • Remove the following applications:

    • Desktop applications

      • Gobby
      • Pitivi
      • Traverso

    • Command-line tools

      • hopenpgp-tools
      • keyringer
      • monkeysign
      • monkeysphere
      • msva-perl
      • paperkey
      • pwgen
      • ssss
      • pdf-redact-tools

    You can install these applications again using the Additional Software feature.

    Thanks to the removal of these less popular applications in 3.14 and the removal of some language packs in 3.13.2, Tails 3.14 is 39 MB smaller than 3.13.

  • Add back the OpenPGP Applet and Pidgin notification icons to the top navigation bar.

  • Fix NoScript being deactivated when restarting Tor Browser.

    *NoScript* is removed from the set of icons displayed by default in *Tor Browser*. This is how *Tor Browers* looks in Tails 3.14.

    To see the list of add-ons that are enabled, choose  ▸ Add-ons.

Code

  • We spent lots of time dealing with the Firefox add-ons fiasco, also known as "armagadd-on 2.0". #16694

  • Finally, most of our patches improving the security of Thunderbird's email configuration wizard were merged and will be part of Thunderbird 68, that is: they'll be shipped not just in Tails, but to all Thunderbird users on any operating system! #6156

  • We sent out a new call to test a fix for the issue in which 16389: Some USB sticks become unbootable in legacy BIOS mode after first boot. We received a few conclusive test results.

  • We tested Onionshare 2.0 in Tails and decided to ship it in 4.0. #14649

Documentation and website

  • We explained better what are captive portals.

  • We documented how to install additional language packs and dictionaries.

  • We replaced the PNG of the pie chart that we have on "How we spend our money" with pure SVG code, directly in the HTML. It makes it lighter to download, more accessible and much easier to update and translate.

Hot topics on our help desk

The first two weeks, before the release of Tails 3.14, we had users reporting

  1. #16608: Disable the topIcons GNOME Shell extension
  2. #16447: Regression on some Intel GPU (Braswell, Kaby Lake)

Then, after the release, the changes on Tor Browser made many users report to us

  1. #16746: document the disappearence of NoScript and HTTPSEverywhere icons from Tor Browser's toolbar
  2. #16762: Document why NoScript last update is january 2000
  3. #16727: Update doc to Tor Browser 8.5

Infrastructure

  • We finished benchmarking the prototype node for our next-generation CI hardware. (#15501)

Funding

  • We completed our work to ship Tails as a USB image which simplifies the installation on macOS and Windows. This work was supported through a grant from The ISC Project.

  • We published an analysis of our 2018 donation campaign.

  • We wrote a thank you email to everybody who donated in 2018.

  • We added a permanent incentive to donate on the homepage of Tor Browser in Tails. It's only displayed 10% of the time.

  • We got sponsored by The Best VPN. Thank you for your generous donation!

  • We published our income statement for 2018.

Outreach

Past events

  • Jesús Marín García presented 2 workshops about Tails in May in the Comunidad Valenciana, Spain:

    • On May 4 at Hack and Beers in Castellón de la Plana
    • On May 11 at VLCTechFest in Valencia

Upcoming events

  • Ulrike and sajolida will be at the Tor meeting on July 11-14 in Stockholm, Sweden.

  • intrigeri, lamby and nodens will attend DebConf19

On-going discussions

Translations

All the website

  • de: 44% (2533) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy, 42% words translated
  • es: 50% (2867) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy, 43% words translated
  • fa: 31% (1778) strings translated, 11% strings fuzzy, 33% words translated
  • fr: 91% (5228) strings translated, 2% strings fuzzy, 92% words translated
  • it: 32% (1872) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy, 29% words translated
  • pt: 25% (1435) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy, 21% words translated

Total original words: 60511

Core pages of the website

  • de: 68% (1225) strings translated, 13% strings fuzzy, 71% words translated
  • es: 78% (1387) strings translated, 11% strings fuzzy, 79% words translated
  • fa: 33% (605) strings translated, 13% strings fuzzy, 32% words translated
  • fr: 97% (1735) strings translated, 2% strings fuzzy, 97% words translated
  • it: 61% (1093) strings translated, 17% strings fuzzy, 63% words translated
  • pt: 44% (789) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy, 47% words translated

Metrics

  • Tails has been started more than 791 323 times this month. This makes 25 527 boots a day on average.
  • 9 697 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of a Tails USB image or ISO from our website.