August 2022 - tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Joydeep's Monthly Status Report for July 2022
by Joydeep Sen Gupta 03 Aug '22

03 Aug '22

Hello everyone! These are my updates from the month of July. With the major Tor Browser 11.5 release, much of my work this month was concentrated around it. I updated the documentation on the Tor Browser User Manual[1], Support Portal[2] and various other documentation we maintain for user support[3]. We got a number of user support requests, as is usual with a major Tor Browser release with users reporting a couple of bugs[4][5]. These bugs are now fixed in the Tor Browser 11.5.1 release! With Tor Browser 11.5, we also have Connection Assist[6] in the stable browser and I have been working to gain feedback about the Circumvention map[7] in order to improve this feature. There has been a major uptick in requests for unlisted obfs4 bridges, mostly from users in China and Turkmenistan[8]. On the Android front, we got multiple reports of the bug in rendering webpages on Samsung S22 device (this is a device specific issue)[9]. That pretty much sums up the highlights from last month and following are some quick stats and highlights from our official support channels. ## Frontdesk Timeline : 01 July - 31 July 2022 Tickets: new: 42 open: 20 resolved: 467 Breakdown of number of RT tickets received with respect to operating system: (Note: This includes tickets where the user mentioned the operating system or it was evident from the issue they were running into and/or enclosed screenshots.) Windows - 22 macOS - 16 GNU/Linux - 3 Android- 18 Breakdown of most frequent tickets (at least 3 RT tickets): 1. 141 RT Tickets - How to use Tor Bridges in Russia.[10] 2. 101 RT Tickets - Private Bridge requests. This is not related to the .ru censorship but requests from Tor users in China, Iran, etc.[11] 3. 6 RT Tickets - Bug in rendering webpages on Tor Browser for Android, specific to the Samsung S22 device[9] 4. 4 RT Tickets - Tor Browser 11.5 incompatible with macOS 10.12[12] 5. 3 RT Tickets - Questions and feedback[13] about the new features in Tor Browser Desktop -- Bridge-moji[14] & Connection Assist. ## Tor Forum Most popular topics in the Support category (in terms of no. of views): 1. "Too many connections (to a single relay) (DDoS 2022.07.02)".[15] 2. "Cannot open any site correctly with Tor (Browser)"[16] 3. "Do my Snowflakes work?"[17] 4. "Testing Invitation for Tor Browser with supported_groups patch countermeasure in Snowflake to evade censorship observed in Russia"[18] 5. "The “Continue to HTTP site” button in HTTPS-only mode doesn’t work"[19] Thanks, -- Joydeep [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/manual/-/issues/119 [2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/support/-/issues/298 [3]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40073 [4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41059 [5]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41050 [6]: https://support.torproject.org/glossary/connection-assist/ [7]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40086 [8]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… [9]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216 [10]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-cens… [11]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ [12]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/version-of-tor-browser-compatible-with-macos… [13]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41093 [14]: https://support.torproject.org/glossary/bridge-moji/ [15]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/too-many-connections-ddos-2022-07-02/3827 [16]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/cannot-open-any-site-correctly-with-tor/4028 [17]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/do-my-snowflakes-work/4069 [18]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/testing-invitation-for-tor-browser-with-supp… [19]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/the-continue-to-http-site-button-in-https-on…

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Rhatto's Monthly Status Report, July 2022
by rhatto 03 Aug '22

03 Aug '22

Hi all :) This is my monthly status report for July 2022. Main activities during the period: 0. [Onion Launchpad][], a landing page template to help users connect to Onion Services sites: * Helping with many enhancements and bug fixes. * Creation of development and build environments for Lektor using tools like Docker Compose and GitLab Runner. * Automated deployment procedures for GitLab and GitHub pages. You can see a live demo at https://tpo.pages.torproject.net/onion-services/onion-launchpad/ 1. Other activities related to Sponsor 123 such as development, deployment, monitoring and support. I would also like to thank both @anarcat and @georg for all their help to bring Onionprobe into Debian: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/onionprobe [Onion Launchpad]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-launchpad/ -- Silvio Rhatto pronouns he/him

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Marco's monthly status report, July 2022
by msim 03 Aug '22

03 Aug '22

Hi, here's my monthly status report for July 2022 Last month I got a bit too over excited about tor-browser-build!443, as it's still in the review cycle [1]. Now that [2] is merged, this entire MR has to be rebased and edited. This month started with some more changes to tor-browser-build!443, and then more patchwork on the WebRTC issue. From the 6th to the 15th (except for the 9th) I was AFK due to external commitments. As soon I was back I started working again on the WebRTC issue, and then got very sick on the 18th. Work started again on the 26th, once again on the WebRTC issue. Unfortunately, due to having reduced and disjoint working hours as a result of external factors, I don't feel like I accomplished everything I wanted to this month. As a result of this, next month I'll be focusing solely on the WebRTC issue and leaving tor-browser-build!443 until after that is complete. In very early August I'm planning on having the compilation issues for WebRTC under MinGW resolved (nearly there, hopefully), and also in early August I'd like to be able to start debugging runtime errors. All things considered, I still managed to become much more familiar with Gecko, which should be very helpful with S131 :) Cheers, Marco [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_re… [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_re…

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Nina’s Monthly Status Report, July 2022
by nina13＠riseup.net 02 Aug '22

02 Aug '22

Hi, everyone, This is my status report for July. My focus remains the same - support the Russian-speaking users in their interactions with Tor Browser through email, our telegram account, and our forum and IRC chat. This month, there were two significant events that I dealt with - the release of the new version of Tor Browser - 11.5 and internet censorship events in Turkmenistan. 1. User support Overall In July, I successfully resolved 473 tickets. On Telegram (@TorProjectSupportBot) - 239 On email (frontdesk@tpo) - 234 Unlike the previous month, I got almost the same amount of user requests on telegram and email in July. I've got many requests on the email frontdesk@tpo from Turkmenistan - the country facing enormous internet censorship. And email communication is more popular as messengers are banned there. 2. New version of TB In July new version of Tor Browser 11.5 was released, so I took part in getting users' feedback on the Connection Assist [1]. Thanks to the new version - the number of bridge requests from Russia lowered in July. 3. User support templates This month I updated the user support templates in Russian according to the new features of the Tor Browser. While doing it, I found a bug with the bridges display [2]. As the Tor Project website was, first, unblocked in Russia and then - blocked again - it caused some extra work on updating the templates. Due to the censorship events in Turkmenistan[3], I gathered all the information that can help users connect to Tor and updated a template for the users from this country. [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40086 [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41059 [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss…

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PieroV's Monthly Status Report, July 2022
by Pier Angelo Vendrame 01 Aug '22

01 Aug '22

Hi everyone! Here is my status report for July 2022. This month, we released Tor Browser 11.5, and fixing all the final details for it took me the first half of the month. In particular, we switched the bridgemoji to SVG files to improve compatibility and consistency across the different platforms [1]. We also added the description for the various emojis. In addition, we fixed some issues that were reported by users in the alpha testing program. Then we finalized the work on the fonts [2][3][4]. After the release of 11.5, we received many feedbacks. Thanks to everyone for providing them! A pair of problems were particularly relevant for many users [5][6]. We resolved them in Tor Browser 11.5.1, which I helped prepare. After that, we started working on Tor Browser 12.0. We want to clean up the code, remove some legacy code, update the remaining to modern JS and move it from secondary repositories to the main one (tor-browser.git). I have already started moving Security Level [7] and New Identity [8]. But then I paused to update Tor Browser for Android to Firefox 102 [9]. We decided to rebase to 102 instead of 103 because we want to explore a Tor Browser for Android based on the ESR channel instead of rapid release. This could help us release Android updates more often and to focus on new features. This also allows us to have a single git branch for desktop and mobile. Finally, I have started the migration to Firefox 102 [10]. We have just started on that, so we do not know when we will have the first 102-based alpha. Best, Pier [0] https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115/ [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40966 [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/30589 [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41004 [4] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41043 [5] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41059 [6] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41050 [7] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40925 [8] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40926 [9] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… [10] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40730

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