Anonymizing Linux: Tails 7.5 makes Thunderbird additional software
In the anonymizing Linux distribution Tails 7.5, Thunderbird becomes additional software. It is therefore on a safer footing.
(Image: heise medien)
The Linux distribution Tails, which is used for anonymous web surfing, has been released in version 7.5. The most striking new feature is the outsourcing of the mail program Thunderbird into an external package. This is for improved security.
This is what the Tails maintainers write in the version announcement about version 7.5 of the anonymizing Linux distribution. The developers are thus bringing central software packages up to date. For example, the Tor Browser is now included in version 15.0.7, while the Tor client is at version 0.4.9.5.
Tails: More Secure E-Mail Client
Although Thunderbird is included in version 140.7.1, Tails now installs the mail client as additional software to improve its security. To achieve this, the features “Thunderbird Email Client” and “Additional Software” must be activated in the persistent storage. As a result, Tails installs Thunderbird anew from the persistent storage on each startup. The developers cite as a reason that Mozilla has always released new Thunderbird versions, only a few days after the release of new Tails versions. This meant that Thunderbird was almost constantly outdated and contained known security vulnerabilities.
The always up-to-date installation package in the persistent storage solves this problem. After installation, Tails displays a dialog titled “Thunderbird Migration.” It also contains the note that Thunderbird will no longer be supplied as standard software with Tails 7.8, which is expected in May 2026.
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Updated Tails Images
As usual, the Tails project provides images for transferring the distribution to USB sticks and ISO images for burning to DVD or testing in virtual machines. With such a USB stick or DVD, you can start foreign computers, for example, to run a trustworthy environment for surfing the web on them. With the persistent storage area on the stick, you can also take data with you that survives restarts.
In mid-February, the Tails developers released version 7.4.2 as an emergency update. In it, they updated the Linux kernel in particular, fixing more than a hundred vulnerabilities. Attackers could have exploited these in combination with other security vulnerabilities, for example, for deanonymization of users.
(dmk)
