As a result of combined mitigation steps taken by the kernel developers and hardware makers, Tails has incorporated the fixes and pushed the new release in the form of Tails 3.4. You can read our introductory article on Meltdown and Spectre for more basic details.
As usual, Tails 3.4 comes with usual security patches and bug fixes. “In particular, Tails 3.4 fixes the widely reported Meltdown attack, and includes the partial mitigation for Spectre,” the release report says.
Other fixed problems shipped Tails 3.4 are:
- Slow start of Tails
- Not deleting packages after installation
- Installation of packages not in proper manner
- Disappearing icons of uBlock Origin in Tor
In case you’re already running Tails 3.2 and 3.3, you’ll get the advantage of the automatic upgrade to 3.4 In case you wish to go ahead with a fresh installation of Tails 3.4, find the download links here.
A couple of issues are also present in this release. The graphical splash screen during startup disappears usually; the developers have urged the users to ignore this issue if your installation works fine. Another issue deals with the lack of sidebar in documentation shipped in Tails.
This release has also kicked off the development of Tails 3.5; it’ll be released on January 23.
