Is Whonix not just a Kicksecure VM with some anonymity optimisations and a TOR routed gateway to push all network through TOR? What makes it a better, safer, option than TAILS or TOR routed apps (using proxy tools like TORSOCKS or Oniux)?
Lots of details can be found on the About page. The short answer is that the other solutions you describe run the Tor process and applications on the same OS, making it possible for applications to circumvent Tor by simply connecting to things without going through Tor. Sometimes this requires reconfiguring the OS, but there are often vulnerabilities that allow this. Whonix separates the Tor process into a gateway VM, and runs apps in a workstation VM that can’t access the network in any way that goes around Tor. Going around Tor therefore requires a very large amount of additional effort, and in theory is impossible (barring security vulnerabilities in the hypervisor, Tor, inter-VM services, and firewalls). The attackable components have much less attack surface than other ways of using Tor.
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