Tails 7.4 released
Tails 7.4 has been released, bringing along some new changes and upgrades. One thing that stands out is how the system now remembers your language preference, keyboard setup, and format choices across sessions. You can save these things from the Welcome Screen onto a USB stick, which makes sense because they'll get applied automatically next time you boot Tails.
That is helpful for typing the long passphrase needed for Persistent Storage setups, since all those UI settings are stored on the drive unencrypted. It's nice, but keep in mind that if someone else picks up your USB stick, there could be security trade-offs.
Alongside these session-saving features, you'll find standard software updates: Tor Browser gets a bump to version 15.0.4, and Thunderbird now runs as its latest stable release, 140.6.0. Tails itself also benefits from a fresh Linux kernel; this time it's v6.12.63.
Another notable shift is the retirement of BitTorrent support in its current form. The reason goes back to how Bittorrent protocol versions work; moving from one spec to another introduces potential security headaches, and fixing that would need extra effort that might not have room for elsewhere. Plus, direct downloads using other sources are often quicker anyway, so it's probably simpler overall.
Digging into the specifics of what else has been fixed up: Kleopatra used to trip over opening files with .gpg extensions; those issues seem sorted out now. Also, if you tried a wrong password on a VeraCrypt volume from the desktop after booting Tails, that could sometimes cause crashes. That's patched too.
There's another subtle update for time displays; 24-hour formatting is now consistent across both the top navbar and the lock screen. Just something to keep in mind if you're used to seeing things differently.
Tails - Tails 7.4
