We are deeply rooted and involved in Debian. The friendships, relationships, and technical expertise we have in Debian have many benefits for Tails, and we are not ready to build the same relationship with Ubuntu, OpenBSD, or any other distribution. See our statement about our [[contribute/relationship_with_upstream]] for details.

See also the article [Why there are so many Debian derivatives](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/09/why_there_are_so_many_debian_derivatives/) by Stefano Zacchiroli.

We usually ship kernels and video drivers from [Debian backports](http://backports.debian.org/). The result is comparable to Ubuntu in terms of support for recent hardware.

We think that the general quality of the maintenance work being done on packages matters from a security perspective. Debian maintainers generally are experts in the fields their packages deal with; while it is generally not the case outside of the limited number of packages Ubuntu officially supports.

This is not possible using the recommended installation methods. Tails is designed to be a live system running from a removable media: USB stick or DVD.

<h2 id="preinstalled">Can I buy a preinstalled Tails USB stick or DVD?</h2>

No, we don't sell preinstalled Tails devices.

Selling preinstalled devices would in fact be a pretty bad idea:

Many websites today require JavaScript to work correctly. As a consequence JavaScript is enabled by default in Tails to avoid confusing many users. But *Tor Browser* takes care of [[blocking dangerous JavaScript functionalities|doc/anonymous_internet/Tor_Browser#javascript]].

Tor Browser also includes a [[security level|doc/anonymous_internet/Tor_browser#security-level]] and the [[NoScript|doc/anonymous_internet/Tor_browser#noscript]] extension to optionally disable more JavaScript. This might improve security in some cases. However, if you disable JavaScript, then the [[fingerprint|doc/anonymous_internet/Tor_Browser#fingerprint]] of your *Tor Browser* differs from most users. This reduces your anonymity.

2. They can have bugs and security vulnerabilities that can be remotely exploited by an
attacker.

<h2 id="update-add-ons">Should I manually update add-ons included in <i>Tor Browser</i>?</h2>

Editing the Tor configuration file, also called `torrc`, to modify how Tor creates circuits can weaken your anonymity in ways that are hard to understand and explain. That is why we don't explain how to modify the Tor configuration file in Tails, for example, to choose the country of your exit nodes or exclude some entry guards.

Still, you can close a given circuit and trigger Tor to create a new one using the [[New Tor circuit for this site|doc/anonymous_internet/Tor_Browser]] button of *Tor Browser* or the [[*Onion Circuits*|doc/anonymous_internet/tor/circuits]] utility.

This second synchronization is made by sending HTTPS queries through Tor to several
websites and deducing a correct time from their answers. You can see the
list of websites that Tails can connect to in *[[!tails_gitweb config/chroot_local-includes/etc/default/htpdate.pools desc="/etc/default/htpdate.pools"]]*.

<h2 id="relay">Can I help the Tor network by running a relay or a bridge in Tails?</h2>

It is currently impossible to run a Tor relay or bridge in Tails.

<p>If a software is not included in Tails, but is included in Debian, you can use
the [[Additional
Software|doc/persistent_storage/configure#additional_software]] feature of
the Persistent Storage to install it automatically every time you start Tails.</p>

First, make sure that this software is already available in Debian, as this is a requirement to be included in Tails.

It is under the scrutiny of the Debian community and its many users and derivatives, including Ubuntu.