Tails
Amnesic live OS focused on privacy and anonymity, routing all traffic through Tor
Last verified September 4, 2026
Tails (“The Amnesic Incognito Live System”) is a live operating system you boot from a USB stick, designed to leave no trace on the computer you use it on and to route all network traffic through the Tor network. It’s used for anonymity research, privacy-sensitive work, and situations where operators need to avoid leaving forensic artifacts on host hardware.
Use it only for lawful purposes and only against systems/networks you own or are explicitly authorized to test — see the disclaimer.
Notable bundled tools
Electrum
an easy-to-use bitcoin client
GnuPG
the GNU implementation of OpenPGP for email and data encryption and signing
OnionShare
for anonymous file sharing
tor-browser
Tor Browser Bundle: anonymous browsing using Firefox and Tor.
Getting started
Tails is designed to boot from a USB stick and leave no trace on the host machine — it does not install to a hard drive in normal use. The official installation guide walks through downloading the image, verifying it, and using the Tails-specific installer (recommended over a generic USB-flashing tool since it configures the persistent storage feature correctly). Every network connection is forced through Tor by default.