The privacy-focused live operating system Tails 7.1 is out today, introducing a new offline Tor Browser homepage, improved user messaging, and updated core applications including Tor Browser 14.5.8 and Thunderbird 140.3.0.
The Tails development team has released version 7.1, continuing its focus on stronger privacy and usability. The most visible change is that the Tor Browser’s home page now loads locally, removing the need to fetch it from tails.net. This tweak aligns Tails with upstream privacy goals while improving reliability for users in restrictive networks.
The update also refines how Tails communicates system permissions. When an application requires administrative privileges but no root password was set from the Welcome Screen, Tails now shows a clearer message. This change improves user understanding of privilege boundaries within the live system.
Key software packages received significant upgrades: Tor 0.4.8.19, Tor Browser 14.5.8, and Thunderbird 140.3.0. The legacy networking package ifupdown has been removed, further modernizing Tails’ network stack.
A small but notable fix hides the misleading “Your connection to Tor is not being managed by Tor Browser” message that sometimes appeared in new tabs.
Tails 7.1 is available as an automatic upgrade for users running version 7.0 or later. If the automatic upgrade fails or the system does not boot, users are advised to perform a manual upgrade. Fresh installations can be created from the provided USB or ISO images, though doing so will erase any existing Persistent Storage.
