Tor Project, Tails Join Forces to Boost Privacy, Fight Censorship Online

Privacy and anonymity specialist Tor Project and Tails have announced a merger, joining forces to help deliver tools for fighting censorship, enhancing privacy, and staying secure online — with Tails now acting as a sub-project under Tor's auspice.

"Running Tails as an independent project for 15 years has been a huge effort, but not for the reasons you might expect," says pseudonymous Tails project lead "intrigeri," who will continue to lead the work under Tor. "The toughest part wasn't the tech — it was handling critical tasks like fundraising, finances, and HR. After trying to manage those in different ways, I'm really relieved that Tails is now under the Tor Project's wing. In a way, it feels like coming home. Joining Tor means we'll finally have the capacity to reach more people who need Tails. We've known for a long time that we needed to ramp up our outreach, but we just didn’t have the resources to do so."

Tails, "The Amnesiac Incognito Live System," launched in June 2009 as a Linux distribution with a difference: it's designed to be booted only when you're planning to go online, then automatically wipes itself on shutdown — restoring a clean slate guaranteed to be clear of malware, trackers, and leaving no local record of what you did during your time in the OS. Its early development was funded by the Tor Project, founded by a team of computer scientists in 2006 to develop and deploy a peer-to-peer "onion routing" system that can hide the origins of internet traffic and bypass censorship, and the first release was announced on the Tor mailing list

That is to say: while the two projects tackle the problems of privacy from different directions, they've been working closely for more than a decade. For end-users, it should be business as usual — but for Tails and Tor, it's a chance to grow. "By bringing these two organizations together, we're not just making things easier for our teams, but ensuring the sustainable development and advancement of these vital tools," says Tor Project executive director Isabela Fernandes. "Working together allows for faster, more efficient collaboration, enabling the quick integration of new features from one tool to the other. This collaboration strengthens our mission and accelerates our ability to respond to evolving threats."

Tails remains available to download, free of charge, on the official website; the Tor Browser is included in Tails, and can be downloaded for other operating systems from its own site.