{"slug": "tails", "name": "Tails", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.151, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-12", "latest": "2026-04-23", "why": "So I prefer to run tails in an isolated environment.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "So I prefer to run tails in an isolated environment.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "tails.net", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://tails.net/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Tails"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 765985106, "item_id": 47874069, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47874069", "by": "wolvoleo", "date": "2026-04-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So I prefer to run tails in an isolated environment.", "excerpt": "Eh but that's a commercial tool. They don't even seem to have a free community version. I wouldn't pay for that. And prefer Firefox anyway. For remote browser tools I use neko https://github.com/m1k1o/neko But with Tor I like to have more safeguards. So I prefer to run tails in an isolated environment.", "context": "", "use_case": "Tor browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "We found a stable Firefox identifier linking all your private Tor identities"}, {"id": 765982896, "item_id": 47873931, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873931", "by": "keepamovin", "date": "2026-04-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a fresh Tails restart would definitely teardown the Fox process", "excerpt": "Nice, yes, a fresh Tails restart would definitely teardown the Fox process. And I think if you're disciplined, then purely ephemeral environments are the best mitigation for process-level state leaks like this IndexedDB ordering bug. For those who want an ephemeral setup but prefer the Chromium engine over Firefox, you can achieve a similar \"destroy after use\" workflow using BrowserBox. It has a tor-run function that", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We found a stable Firefox identifier linking all your private Tor identities"}, {"id": 763338080, "item_id": 47708630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708630", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "And of course, there's TAILS.", "excerpt": "> NSA also warns users that \u201cat a minimum, you should schedule weekly reboots of your routing device, smartphones, and computers. Regular reboots help to remove implants and ensure security.\u201d That just means turning it off and on again. Anything that's writable, including firmware, can be persistently hacked, with the hack surviving reboot. I remember some Sun gizmos meant for schools that booted only from CD. (not t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "NSA Warning\u2013Reboot Your Internet Router Now"}, {"id": 756267600, "item_id": 47266725, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47266725", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "TAILS, anyone?", "excerpt": "Welcome to the black market in linux distros. TAILS, anyone? https://tails.net Nice because it leaves no trace. Can someone verify that TAILS is age-verification free, and if not, which is the last release to be so? Mac users: get out the old intel boxes. It doesn't run on Apple Silicon. By the way: Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages, was later found unconstitutional and overturned by voters. https://en.wikipe", "context": "", "use_case": "Anonymous OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ageless Linux: A Debian-based distro that is illegal to distribute in California"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["tor browsing", "anonymous os"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47866697", "title": "We found a stable Firefox identifier linking all your private Tor identities", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47707996", "title": "NSA Warning\u2013Reboot Your Internet Router Now", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47265333", "title": "Ageless Linux: A Debian-based distro that is illegal to distribute in California", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47072968", "title": "Paged Out Issue #8 [pdf]", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46243543", "title": "The Tor Project is switching to Rust", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 765985106, "item_id": 47874069, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47874069", "by": "wolvoleo", "date": "2026-04-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So I prefer to run tails in an isolated environment.", "excerpt": "Eh but that's a commercial tool. They don't even seem to have a free community version. I wouldn't pay for that. And prefer Firefox anyway. For remote browser tools I use neko https://github.com/m1k1o/neko But with Tor I like to have more safeguards. So I prefer to run tails in an isolated environment.", "context": "", "use_case": "Tor browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "We found a stable Firefox identifier linking all your private Tor identities"}, {"id": 765982896, "item_id": 47873931, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873931", "by": "keepamovin", "date": "2026-04-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a fresh Tails restart would definitely teardown the Fox process", "excerpt": "Nice, yes, a fresh Tails restart would definitely teardown the Fox process. And I think if you're disciplined, then purely ephemeral environments are the best mitigation for process-level state leaks like this IndexedDB ordering bug. For those who want an ephemeral setup but prefer the Chromium engine over Firefox, you can achieve a similar \"destroy after use\" workflow using BrowserBox. It has a tor-run function that", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We found a stable Firefox identifier linking all your private Tor identities"}, {"id": 763338080, "item_id": 47708630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708630", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "And of course, there's TAILS.", "excerpt": "> NSA also warns users that \u201cat a minimum, you should schedule weekly reboots of your routing device, smartphones, and computers. Regular reboots help to remove implants and ensure security.\u201d That just means turning it off and on again. Anything that's writable, including firmware, can be persistently hacked, with the hack surviving reboot. I remember some Sun gizmos meant for schools that booted only from CD. (not t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "NSA Warning\u2013Reboot Your Internet Router Now"}, {"id": 756267600, "item_id": 47266725, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47266725", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "TAILS, anyone?", "excerpt": "Welcome to the black market in linux distros. TAILS, anyone? https://tails.net Nice because it leaves no trace. Can someone verify that TAILS is age-verification free, and if not, which is the last release to be so? Mac users: get out the old intel boxes. It doesn't run on Apple Silicon. By the way: Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages, was later found unconstitutional and overturned by voters. https://en.wikipe", "context": "", "use_case": "Anonymous OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ageless Linux: A Debian-based distro that is illegal to distribute in California"}, {"id": 753246960, "item_id": 47077935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47077935", "by": "throawayonthe", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it's being used in real life by Whonix (sdwdate) and Tails (tails-htp/htpdate)", "excerpt": "[re: page 40 NTP-over-HTTP] ooh i've heard of this! it's being used in real life by Whonix (sdwdate) and Tails (tails-htp/htpdate) https://www.kicksecure.com/wiki/Sdwdate https://tails.net/contribute/design/Time_syncing/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Paged Out Issue #8 [pdf]"}, {"id": 740038898, "item_id": 46252431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252431", "by": "flipped", "date": "2025-12-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tails ships Tor browser with ublock", "excerpt": "Onions are extremely fast and for the level of anonymity they provide, it's an amazing advancement. It's surprising that Reddit has kept their onion in working condition given their poor attempts (a very bad TLS fingerprinting for all redlib instances) recently to shutdown redlib instances. Tails ships Tor browser with ublock but the Tor browser team doesn't want to for simple reason: fingerprinting. I use ublock too", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Tor Project is switching to Rust"}]}