The Whonix Project has extended its support for Whonix templates on Qubes 4.0 by an additional month to 2022-04-20. This comes after an initial 16-day extension when the release of Qubes 4.1 was originally announced.

How does Whonix support work?

While Qubes OS releases are supported for six months following each subsequent major or minor release, Whonix templates have their own support policy set by the Whonix Project. This policy requires Whonix template users to stay reasonably close to the cutting edge by upgrading to new stable releases of Qubes OS and Whonix templates within a month of their respective releases. To be precise:

  • One month after a new stable version of Qubes OS is released, Whonix templates are no longer supported on any older release of Qubes OS. This means that users who wish to continue using Whonix templates on Qubes are usually required to upgrade to the latest stable Qubes OS version within one month of its release (unless the deadline is extended, as it has been in this case).

  • One month after new stable versions of Whonix templates are released, older releases of Whonix templates are no longer supported. This means that users who wish to continue using Whonix templates on Qubes are usually required to upgrade to the latest stable Whonix template versions within one month of their release. (This point doesn’t apply to the present situation, since this announcement pertains to a new Qubes OS release, not a new Whonix template release. However, I’m mentioning it here for the sake of completeness, as it’s part of the Whonix support policy.)

What does this mean for you?

If you haven’t upgraded from Qubes 4.0 to Qubes 4.1 yet, and you use Whonix templates, this extension means you have a bit more time to upgrade before your Whonix templates are no longer supported. You should aim to upgrade to Qubes 4.1 (or discontinue use of Whonix templates) by 2022-04-20.

If you’re already on Qubes 4.1 or you don’t use Whonix templates, you’re all set. This announcement doesn’t change anything for you.