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<p>Hey, team! <br>
<br>
Welcome to the January 2019 user feedback report! I hope 2019 is
treating you well so far. For more information on what users and
community members were talking about this month, check out the
December 2018/January 2019 User Feedback pad [1]. <br>
<br>
TL;DR: <br>
<br>
There were a bunch of releases this month, and a few user bug
reports in the blog post comments. Reddit was about the same as
always (with a focus on VPN and fingerprinting questions), and RT
brought in a lot of questions about problems connecting with
bridges.<br>
<br>
- The question I see most often across platforms is 'why can't I
connect to Tor?'. I think we should provide more information to
users when they run into problems connecting. Ideally, we would
implement error messages that let users know exactly what's wrong,
and what they can do to fix it. Until then, it would be very
useful to have a guide to finding and understanding Tor logs. I've
opened a trac task for this [2]. I will need some assistance from
the browser/applications team, so if you're able/willing to help
teach me how to read these logs better, please reach out! <br>
<br>
- Reddit is mostly full of the same questions we saw last month
(i.e. 'will doing x allow me to be fingerprinted?' & 'my
bridges aren't working - what do I do?'). Hopefully the second
problem can be addressed by the Tor log document proposed above. <br>
<br>
- Tor is still broken for screen readers. I've been receiving some
messages about this in RT from folks affected by the issue.
They're having to use TB 7 instead of TB 8, since updating breaks
screen reader compatibility. <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Now, on to the feedback! Scroll further down to see a summary of
Reddit posts, some points from Google Play Store reviews, a list
of the most common Stack Exchange tags from the month, and a
collection of some notable issues and bugs mentioned by users in
January.<br>
<br>
---<br>
<br>
Most common questions on Reddit:<br>
- Will doing _____ allow me to be fingerprinted?<br>
- Why can't I connect/why aren't my bridges working?<br>
<br>
One Reddit user is having a lot of trouble connecting from Turkey
[3]. <br>
<br>
--- <br>
<br>
TBA Reviews & Feedback on Google Play Store:<br>
<br>
The average review score is still at 4.2 stars. <br>
Some people are a bit confused about bridges - it seems they don't
know what to do once they run into connection issues. We should
provide some more guidance, perhaps in the form of links to
information about bridges. Some users were still experiencing
crashes in January when saving files, as well. <br>
<br>
---<br>
<br>
Most common stack exchange tags:<br>
<br>
configuration: 20 this month<br>
tor-browser-bundle: 15 this month<br>
connection: 11 this month<br>
hidden-services: 7 this month<br>
relays: 7 this month<br>
<br>
---<br>
<br>
Notable bugs, fixes, & issues:<br>
<br>
#27503 [4] - Disabling accessibility on Windows breaks screen
readers - OPEN</p>
<p><br>
#29238 [5] - TBA: Prevent crash following upgrade - OPEN </p>
<p><br>
#28705 [6] - Tor Browser on Android is crashing on newer Android
devices (>= Android N) by file download - CLOSED<br>
<br>
#29175 [7] - Tor 0.3.5.x mishandles empty socks5 auth - CLOSED<br>
<br>
#29327 [8] - TypeError: hostName is null on <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="about:tor">about:tor</a> page -
CLOSED <br>
<br>
---<br>
<br>
Other user suggestions:<br>
<br>
- "I want to suggest making a personalized .iso distro for people
that want to run relays...We should be able to download something
that is already configured with everything you need software wise
to run the relay. The only thing we should have to do is open up
the correct ports for port forwarding in our router. If this was
procedure, I think there would be many more relays and exit nodes
than there are."<br>
<br>
- "I understand why you've rolled Orbot into TB, but can you add
an option to use the "legacy", separate Orbot into the settings?
I used to have TB as the default browser on my 'droid, but now
that every time I open it I have to sign into a second instance of
Orbot (as a big chunk of traffic from my phone is Torified, I have
Orbot on all the time) - since this takes a long time, I've
resorted to using Firefox Klar/Focus."<br>
<br>
- "I want to set Tor Android Alpha to clear all personal data on
exit so I went to Privacy -> Clear private data on exit. It
works except for Downloads, which get un-ticked every time I
re-launch Tor. It's probably a minor issue as other things like
history and cookies do get cleared and stay like that. Although to
be honest it would be nice to just have a single setting for
always-on Private Tab whenever I launch Tor." <br>
<br>
(notably, I have not been able to reproduce the issue they
describe with Download privacy settings resetting after a
restart.)<br>
<br>
---<br>
<br>
That's it for the month of January! If you want to know more,
please do check out the December 2018/January 2019 User Feedback
pad [1] or reach out to me via email (waywardwyrd at riseup dot
net) or IRC (wayward).<br>
<br>
Before signing off, I'll leave you with this gem of a post [9].<br>
<br>
Thanks for reading! I'll see you all back here next month! <br>
<br>
- wayward/Maggie<br>
<br>
pronouns: she/they | twitter: <a
href="https://www.twitter.com/meochaidha">@meochaidha</a> <br>
pgp: 0626 9C68 D0CC 1A5B E41B 72F2 615E B878 975C 4CDC</p>
<p>------<br>
<br>
Annotations:<br>
1.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://storm.torproject.org/shared/CsGcDVAvB32NeawrrziFcprx22gp9EjUscJ61hmOeFH">https://storm.torproject.org/shared/CsGcDVAvB32NeawrrziFcprx22gp9EjUscJ61hmOeFH</a><br>
2. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29584">https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29584</a><br>
3.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/alecre/turkey_cannot_connect_to_tor_whatever_i_tried/">https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/alecre/turkey_cannot_connect_to_tor_whatever_i_tried/</a><br>
4. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27503">https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27503</a><br>
5. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29238">https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29238</a><br>
6. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28705">https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28705</a><br>
7. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29175">https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29175</a><br>
8. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29327">https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29327</a><br>
9.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/akqh58/when_i_think_of_tor/">https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/akqh58/when_i_think_of_tor/</a></p>
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