Tails 7.3.1 released
Tails 7.3.1 has been released to the public, representing a minor update from the originally planned release of Tails 7.3. The discovery and fixing of a security vulnerability within one of the distribution's software libraries necessitated this change.
At the heart of this new version are several key upgrades focused on improving overall security, stability, and usability for users. One notable upgrade is to Thunderbird; it's been bumped to 1:140.5.0esr-1~deb13u1. This change provides users with a more secure email client.
Another significant update involves the Tor Browser. The release bumps it to version 15.0.3, based on ESR 14.0.6. That upgrade not only offers better security but also improves user experience through enhanced functionality and features.
The Tails 7.3.1 release includes several other important upgrades that further enhance the distribution's overall performance, security, and usability. These changes touch various aspects of the system, including Debian APT snapshots, firmware nonfree versions, and Tor versions, among others.
Beyond these core software updates, there have been significant improvements to how Tails handles releases itself. This involves adjustments for custom about:tor patches and enhancements to the test suite that ensure better performance and security results.
Notably, Thunderbird's own telemetry settings saw a change in this update. The configuration now points to empty URLs instead of using a specific server. That aims to enhance user privacy and reduce potential risks related to data sharing.
Various commits have also addressed several issues within the Tails test suite, thereby boosting code quality and security. Changes such as running xfwm4 inside an X virtual framebuffer and dropping workarounds for spice-vdagent are part of these updates.
You can usually obtain the full details explaining these changes in the official changelog. The new release can be downloaded from the download page.
