Hi! Below
is my January’25 report!
In
January, I resolved a
total of 904
tickets, a
decrease of 775 from the previous month (total: 1679):
- RT
(frontdesk@tpo) - 191 (↓28)
- Telegram
(@TorProjectSupportBot) - 712 (↓747)
- WhatsApp
(+447421000612) - 1 (1)
- Signal
(+17787431312) - 0 (0).
My
main focus in January (and always) was supporting
Russian-speaking users in bypassing internet censorship. So I
shared censorship circumvention instructions, helped users
resolve any issues they are facing with Tor Browser, and
collected their feedback on what worked for them and what
didn’t. I also took part in Tor Forum moderation and worked on
reviewing Google Play Store users' reviews.
For
the first in the last six months, we observed a decrease in
support tickets from Russian-speaking users. Despite this
decrease, the number of tickets is still higher than in
July-2024, when new censorship activities by Roskomnadzor were
detected[1]. I created a new ticket to track censorship in
Russia in 2025[2].
##
Elections in Belarus
In
January there were Presidential Elections in Belarus [3]. On the
eve of the elections many VPN services and websites were blocked
in the country [4]. It
seems Tor
remained accessible
with bridges[5], however
some
users
reported difficulties in finding working bridges.
## Google
Play Reviews for Tor Browser (TBA) and
Tor Browser Alpha for
Android
- Tor
Browser for Android (TBA)
had a
Google Play rating of 4.389 (↑) stars in January 2025, which is
higher than in December.
- Tor
Browser for Android (TBA) got 774 (↑17) reviews out of 60,429
for the lifetime.
- Tor
Browser for Android Alpha (TBA-Alpha) app had a rating of 4.219
(↓) which is lower than in December.
- In
January, Tor Browser for Android (TBA-Alpha) got 37 (0) reviews
out of 8,448 for the lifetime.
## Most
common issues on the Google Play store reviews
- “Tor
Browser doesn’t work”: - often from Russian users, who are
struggling to find a way to connect to Tor;
- “Tor
speed is too slow”: I use a template asking to refresh the Tor
circuit or contact Tor Browser support.
In the
reviews I also encountered an issue of Tor Browser for
Android freezes
when used on Realme GT NEO 3 smartphone[6].