For hardware compatibility issues, refer to our [[known issues|support/known_issues]].

To learn what you can do with Tails, refer to our [[documentation|doc]].

For questions related to Tor, see also to the [Tor support pages](https://support.torproject.org/).

Tails is part of the [Tor Project](https://torproject.org/).

Tails [[was founded|news/celebrating_10_years]] in 2009 and [[joined forces with Tor|news/tails_tor]] in 2024.

Ubuntu is led by [[!wikipedia Canonical (company) desc="Canonical"]], a for-profit corporation that takes most of the important decisions.

People have asked for Tails with LXDE, XFCE, MATE, KDE, and so on, but we are not going to use a different desktop.

The main drawback of GNOME is that it requires quite a lot of resources, but GNOME has many advantages, especially for users who are new to Linux.

The GNOME desktop is:

Well integrated

That's also why we are not going to provide more than one desktop option.

No. Upgrading whenever you get a notification from *[[Tails Upgrader|doc/upgrade]]* is enough.

If you upgrade the system yourself using `apt` or *Synaptic*, you might break things.

Our team sometimes publishes emergency releases, whenever important security upgrades are available in Debian or *Tor Browser* before the next scheduled release.

<p>In the future, we might make it possible to verify the integrity of a Tails
USB stick from another trusted OS. ([[!tails_ticket 7496]])</p>

[[!img doc/anonymous_internet/tor/tor.png link="no" class="svg" alt="A Tor connection goes through 3 relays with the last one establishing the actual connection to the final destination"]]

[[!img doc/anonymous_internet/tor/vpn.png link="no" class="svg" alt="A VPN connection goes through a single relay"]]

But VPNs have clear benefits over Tor in some situations where strong anonymity is not needed, for example:

To access websites that block Tor or can only be accessed from a given country

To use videoconferencing tools like *Jitsi* or *Zoom*