Tails report for January 2022 https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2022_01/
Releases
Tails 4.26 was released on January 11 https://tails.boum.org/news/version_4.26/index.en.html.
Among other changes, it added a shortcut to open the /Tor Connection/ assistant when starting /Tor Browser/ if Tails is not connected to the Tor network yet.
Usability improvements
Installation pages
We fixed all the low-hanging fruits among the issues identified in December during usability tests of first-time use https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2021_12/:
* #18764 https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18764: "Start in macOS" is confusing when obvious * #18765 https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18765: QR code in steps is unclear * #18771 https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18771: Add screenshot of Plymouth to installation steps * #18773 https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18773: Update time estimates in overview
After which we started a bigger project to restructure our installation pages. Stay tuned!
Connecting to Tor
Polishing the user experience of connecting to Tor from Tails is one of our top priorities for 2021-2023. We are continuously designing and implementing improvements in this area. Here's the January 2021 edition :)
We noticed a while ago, thanks to usability tests, that users not accustomed to the GNOME desktop have difficulties connecting to Wi-Fi. So we made this more discoverable last year, by making Wi-Fi settings reachable from /Tor Connection/. Unfortunately, while our initial implementation looked OK in a simplified test environment, it turns out it was not working in real user scenarios, so we fixed it (#18587 https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18587).
Metrics
Tails has been started more than 773 496 times this month. This makes 24 951 boots a day on average.