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/-/issu... [9]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216 [10]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-censo... [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-suppo... [19]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/the-continue-to-http-site-button-in-https-onl...