The Tails Operating System

The Tails Operating System is for those who are concerned about privacy and anonymity on the Internet,

If you often use a computer belonging to someone else, maybe to secretly browse the Internet using the office/college computer, then you might be spending a huge amount of time to clear up the browsing data. We know it's a kinda irritating and a lazy to do work. For people of this kind comes a relief, The Tails OS.
Tails is a coolest OS that can booted live from a USB or a DVD.

The Tails Operating System (http://tails.boum.org) is available as a free download on the Internet and has been specifically designed to keep security in mind. It is an OS that can run from a boot-able live DVD or a USB stick and gives the users absolute anonymity on the Internet. Not only does it protect your privacy on the Internet, it can also be used to bypass restrictions that may have been implemented by your system administrator. Tails uses TOR to provide its users with secure encrypted anonymous access to the Internet. It has various inbuilt encryption capabilities which allow users to encrypt their files and browse the internet without any restrictions. It is possible to install Tails OS on a boot-able DVD or a Pen Drive, and now let us see the procedure of creating a Live boot-able Tails OS Pen Drive:

Step 1:
The obvious first step is to download The Tails Operating System from its website https://tails.boum.org/download/index.en.html which is a 865 MB file and so it may take a few minutes to download. We also need to download a tool to make the USB Pen drive a boot-able one, and one such tool is the Universal USB Installer ( available on http://www.pendrivelinux.com/downloads/universal-usb-installer/universal-usb-installer.exe ). And finally you need to have a pen drive with atleast 2 GB free usable space.

Step 2:
Plug in your pen drive to your computer and then start the Universal USB Installer software and follow the on-screen instructions. It will ask the linux distribution we wish to install, and we select Tails, then choose the path where we downloaded the Tails ISO image and select the pen drive on which we wish to install the Tails Operating System. The Installation process would be completed in a few minutes.
(Note: Performing this step will erase all the data existing data on the pen drive, backup the data if needed)

Step 3:
Once the installation is over, keep the USB Pen Drive plugged into your computer and restart the computer. Before booting press the key F12 or F10 depending on various systems to open the BIOS settings page, in the BIOS select boot and then set the 1st Boot Priority  to the connected USB Pen drive. Save the settings and restart the computer.

Step 4:
The Tails OS should start automatically on the computer. And now the application restriction that existed on windows will no longer be there. You are free to use whatever application we want.


This OS is very popular because it comes with various Pre-installed applications (TOR, etc) which give you anonymity over the internet, also  you'll be able to unblock applications and can access the blocked stuff over the internet, i.e., all the website restrictions are also removed.

Unblock Facebook chat even if www.facebook.com is blocked!

Most Organizations, colleges, companies etc. nowadays are blocking access to www.facebook.com as they consider it to deviate their employees. This means you cant even chat with your friends over facebook. This is where a cool software called Chit Chat (available for free at http://www.chitchat.org.uk). It is a free standalone Facebook chat software that allows you to chat with your facebook friends without the need of a browser and even if www.facebook.com is blocked!

Ultrasurf

Ultrasurf is one of my favorite anti-censorship and anti-blocking software on the Internet. It is free, fast and very effective. Ultrasurf was originally created by the Ultrareach Internet Corporation to help Internet users in China to bypass filtering and censorship by the government. However, Ultrasurf is now amongst the most popular unblocking tools available on the Internet. It is available as a free download at http://ultrasurf.us/ or  https://goo.gl/vqyQs . Unlike the traditional proxy servers, Ultrasurf supports cookies, scripts and even SSL!

The best part about Ultrasurf is that it does not require any installation or configuration. It is just a 2MB file which can easily be carried around in a pen drive, mp3 player or even in a Micro SD card of your camera to your college or office. It is possible to simply double click on the .EXE file downloaded  to get immediate access to blocked and restricted URL's. No installation, No registration, No other hassles! Sometimes clever System Administrators will try to prevent users from using the Ultrasurf by blocking its process name from being allowed to be loaded into the memory or being executed. In such cases, it is still possible to use Ultrasurf by just changing the name of the downloaded .EXE file to any other name. This will also change the process name in the task manager.

Ultrasurf can be used to:

• Hide your ip-address and surf anonymous.
• For accessing blocked website on you school college or work.
• Encrypt your communication, and personal information while online banking on public Wi-Fi.

Now comes the most awaited part, lets see how we can start using Ultrasurf by following the simple steps below:

Step 1:  
Before we start Ultrasurf , let us check the current IP address of the system by opening http://whatismyipaddress.com/ . Within few seconds it tells my Current IP address as 182.65.184.247, my current ISP is Airtel Broadband and location is Chennai, TamilNadu, India. We'll test the IP address again after running Ultrasurf.

Step 2:
In this step double click on the downloaded .EXE file and it should automatically open the console window shown below. Ultrasurf will first automatically establish a connection to its central server what has a huge database of available proxy servers and find the best available proxy server and then establish a secure connection with it. Once the secure anonymous connection with the proxy has been established, Ultrasurf will automatically open an Internet explorer window. By default, there will be a golden colored padlock on the right bottom corner of the browser window signifying a secure connection has been established.

Step 3:
To test whether the connection is truly anonymous, connect once again to the website http://whatismyipaddress.com . Based on the screenshot below, the IP address has quickly changed to 65.49.14.77 with the ISP as Hurricane Electric and my location is shown as California, United States.

The best feature of Ultrasurf is that when you close it, it will automatically delete all entries from the browsing history and cookies on your system, leaving absolutely no traces behind! Enjoy Ultrasurf-ing!