Hey, friends!
Welcome to the December 2018 user feedback report. 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].
TL;DR:
There were a bunch of releases this month, and lots of 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 bridges and TBA.
- Confusion about using a VPN with Tor continues to be common on
Reddit and RT. I'm hoping that these questions will be addressed
by the Tor v. VPN guide I'm writing up for the support portal,
which will incorporate some of the information that pastly
previously posted [2].
- People (especially Reddit users) have lots of questions about
whether certain actions will allow them to be fingerprinted. I
think we could address some of this with an expanded FAQ entry,
and potentially by linking to EFF's Panopticlick [3] so that users
can experiment with their settings themselves.
- Tor is still broken for screen readers. This is a high priority
fix, not only because this issue may prevent users with impaired
vision from using Tor, but also because the issue interferes with
our commitment to making Tor easy to use for everyone.
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
December.
---
Most common questions on Reddit:
- How can I hide the fact that I'm using Tor; or, should I use a
VPN together with Tor?
- (these questions appear all the time, and will be addressed
in a Tor v. VPN doc I'm working on for the support portal.)
- Will doing _____ allow me to be fingerprinted?
---
TBA Reviews & Feedback on Google Play Store:
The average review score is currently 4.2. Reviews are a mix of
people who are very excited to be able to use Tor on their mobile,
people who are getting 'proxy server' errors, and people who are
upset that it's slower than their usual browser. I will continue
to investigate the reported 'proxy server' errors through related
RT tickets. Users are also experiencing crashes on certain Android
devices when attempting to download a file using TBA.
---
Most common stack exchange tags:
tor-browser-bundle: 12 this month
configuration: 8 this month
help: 5 this month
orbot: 5 this month
---
Notable bugs, fixes, & issues:
#27503 [4] - Disabling accessibility on Windows breaks screen
readers - OPEN (NEEDS INFORMATION)
#28720 [5] - NoScript blocks certain videos starting with
10.1.9.2rc2 on security level "safer" - CLOSED - FIXED
#28874 [6] - https://browserleaks.com/webgl crashes tab on 64bit
Tor Browser for Windows - CLOSED - FIXED
#28836 [7] - Links on about:tor are not clickable anymore on
Windows starting with 8.5a5 - OPEN - NEEDS REVIEW
#28705 [8] - Tor Browser on Android is crashing on newer Android
devices (>= Android N) by file download - OPEN - NEEDS REVISION
#29043 [9] - NoScript freezes the browser when scripts are enabled
(TB 8.5a6) - OPEN
#29032 [10] - Tor Browser 8.0.4 stops displaying text correctly in
Virtualbox on Windows - OPEN
---
That's it for the month of December! In the interest of keeping
things short(ish), I've left out some other feedback. 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).
Thanks for reading! I'll see you all back here next month!
- wayward (Maggie)
pronouns: she/they | twitter: @meochaidha
pgp: 0626 9C68 D0CC 1A5B E41B 72F2 615E B878 975C 4CDC
------
Annotations:
1.
https://storm.torproject.org/shared/u4ch1acnksyrZD2Zu8_ODT2l_Va8iMPgqWQU41g5F1H
2. https://matt.traudt.xyz/posts/vpn-tor-not-mRikAa4h.html
3. https://panopticlick.eff.org/
4. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27503
5. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28720
6. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28874
7. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28836
8. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28705
9. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29043
10. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29032