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Tails
The Amnesic Incognito Live System -- a live, boot-from-USB OS that forces all network traffic through Tor and leaves no trace on the host machine once shut down.
Security, Privacy & AnonymityprivacyanonymityTorlive-USBamnesicDownload ↗Official site ↗Docs / Wiki ↗
Based on
Debian
First released
2009
Package manager
APT (.deb)
Desktop environments
GNOME (customized)
Tails is designed to run entirely from a USB stick on essentially any computer, route every connection through the Tor network by default, and leave zero forensic trace on the host machine's hard drive once powered off -- RAM is even wiped on shutdown. It's used by journalists, whistleblowers, and activists working under real surveillance risk (its development was notably informed by disclosures from Edward Snowden's collaborators), as well as anyone who simply wants a session that guarantees no persistent footprint. Because it's amnesic by design, it supports an optional encrypted 'Persistent Storage' partition on the same USB drive for the specific files and settings a user chooses to keep between sessions, rather than persisting everything by default.
MirrorNest doesn't mirror distro ISOs — installation media should always come straight from the project's own official download page (linked above), so you get the correct checksum/signature to verify against.