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Is Parrot OS as secure as Tails?

Tails is running from USB, loading to RAM so it means that it doesn't use local computer storage. After each start, Tails starts a new session and doesn't store files you had in previous sessions. It means that you can browse using flash drive where installed Tails on someone's computer, but he won't see anything of it because Tails worked in RAM, it erases each shut down.

Parrot OS is an operating system for pentesting, which has hacking and anonymity tools. You can use it from USB too: install .iso file into flash drive, and start it as "Live CD". After restart data was in that session won't appear.

So,
Can you use Parrot OS live mode instead of Tails, will it be as private, or
Does Tails have another security and privacy features except routing all traffic through Tor?

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    Secure against what? Someone using the machine you plugged the flash drive into? That's what you focus on in your question. But what do you want to OS to protect you from?
    – schroeder ♦
    Apr 5, 2021 at 20:10
  • @schroeder secure for hard drive analysis, and internet privacy(routing all traffic through Tor) because I don't trust Anonsurf.
    – Jenia
    Apr 7, 2021 at 12:12
  • Any OS you boot off of a USB won't write to the hard drive. As for internet privacy, we can't review different products or services. If you have a specific question about something used by either of this distros, you can ask that.
    – schroeder ♦
    Apr 7, 2021 at 13:59

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Parrot is by definition a Penetration Testing oriented OS based on Debian. This basically means that is a distro with a bunch of repos + already installed applications useful for pentesting. On the other hand, we have Tails which is NOT a PT oriented distro, it is instead a privacy/anonymity oriented distro.

With this information, we can see that the main idea of the creators of Parrot was to do a pentesting distro and not a secure one in terms of privacity. therefore I would not recommend you using it if your idea is to preserve privacy. I would use Tails instead.

As another funny example of the security of the penetration testing images was the fact of the old Kali versions which had the root account with default very weak credentials (root:toor). Just because a distro was made to be used on penetration testing it does not mean necessarily that the distro itself is secure.

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    But Parrot OS have a "Anonsurf" feature. Kali is for hacking only distribution, while Parrot is for hacking & safety (you may know Parrot Home, especially for non-pentesters)
    – Jenia
    Apr 6, 2021 at 11:02
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    That is correct. The Anonsurf feature exists. However TailsOS is quite strict with what software comes installed, also comes with very interesting features by default as: - Applications are blocked automatically if they try to connect to the Internet without Tor. - Everything in the Persistent Storage is encrypted automatically. - Tails does not write anything to the hard disk. All the memory is deleted when shutting down.
    – borcho
    Apr 6, 2021 at 11:17
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As describe in Tails webpage: is a portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship. it is more efficient to protect your privacy than ParrotSec. ParrotSec is similar to the most known Linux OS it can be used from a live session, it doesn't protect your privacy before taking some additional steps.

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  • But why "more efficient"? Parrot have "Anonsurf" feature, which routes all traffic through Tor.
    – Jenia
    Apr 6, 2021 at 11:05

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