[[!meta title="Our achievements in 2020"]]

Despite everything, 2020 was a great year for Tails. We released major improvements that made Tails easier to use by the people who need it the most.

If you enjoyed our work in 2020, take a minute now to
<a href="https://tails.net/donate/?r=at">donate and fight surveillance and censorship</a>!

From the number of automatic upgrades, we know that Tails was used 20% more in 2020 than in 2019, which is our largest increase since 2016. From March to May only, when the lockdown measures were the strictest worldwide, Tails got used 10% more than ever before.

Today, Tails is used close to 32&#8239;000 times each day.

[[!img users.png link="no" alt=""]]

Simplified starting procedure

We added support for **Secure Boot** in April. Secure Boot doesn't really make your computer any safer but it forced most users to edit their BIOS in complicated and risky ways to be able to use Tails (or Linux in general). Now you don't have to edit the BIOS anymore!

We also documented the **Shift+Restart** procedure to start Tails from Windows 8 or 10 using the **Start [[!img lib/start.png alt="" link="no"]]** menu. Now you don't have to hammer that Boot Menu key anymore!

All this dramatically simplified our [[starting instructions for PCs|install/windows#restart]].

[[!img install/inc/screenshots/choose_an_option.png link="no" alt=""]]

Better upgrades

Because we know that upgrades are one of the most painful aspects of using Tails, we released significant improvements to automatic upgrades in January. We made automatic upgrades:

Available **from all prior versions** to the latest version in a single upgrade.

For example, you can upgrade from 4.10 to 4.14 directly, without
having to first upgrade to 4.12 anymore.

- Available **endlessly between minor versions** of Tails.

For example, you don't have to do a manual upgrade anymore after a few
upgrades. You will only have to do a manual upgrade between major versions,
for example to upgrade to Tails 5.0 at the end of 2021.

- Use less memory.

- Better documented, especially manual upgrades.

But also&hellip;