The maintainers of the Tails operating system have announced that they’re deprecating the Tails Verification extension that was used to ensure Tails disc images had not been tampered with. The project will replace the extension with JavaScript code that runs directly on the page which should make life a bit easier for users.
Aside from simplifying the verification process, it’s also compatible with more browsers as Edge and Safari users didn’t have access to the Tails Verification extension. The team behind the Tor-equipped operating system also said that the new process is just as secure as using the Tails Verification extension.
With Tails being geared towards those seeking privacy and anonymity, it’s a little shocking to hear that only a minority of downloads are currently being verified by users. The Tails developers have put a lot of effort in recent years to greatly lower the barriers to entry with their OS so it’s perhaps not too surprising that non-technical users have skipped verification, not understanding why it’s important.
The hope now is that the new process of verification will greatly increase the number of verified downloads. This will help protect users from malicious actors who could try to hack the Tails website and upload new disc images that have been tampered with as happened with the Linux Mint project several years ago.