Hello all,

Last month we saw a massive uptick in support requests from Chinese speaking users due the outreach work[0]. Helped users with troubleshooting and using pluggable transport that works best for them.

With three Tor Browser stable releases, much of my work went into post-release user support work. We got a number of reports about the Snowflake domain fronting issue with Fastly[1], which was fixed with Tor Browser 13.0.11. We got a few questions about the removal of automatic onionsite prioritization[2] with Tor Browser 13.0.12.

In terms of documentation, I added a unified section about installing little-t-tor (tor the network daemon) to our support portal[3].

Following is a thorough breakdown of tickets our user support team handled in March:

# Frontdesk (email support channel)

* 645(↑) RT tickets created * 617(↑) RT tickets resolved

Tickets by numbers:

1. 292(↑) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users. 2. 154(↑) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries. 3. 23 RT tickets: Snowflake domain fronting issue with Fastly. 4. 10(↓) RT tickets: private bridge and help with circumventing censorship requests from regions where Tor is not blocked. The issues were mostly resolved by troubleshooting and analysing Tor logs and the issues ranged from - firewall, VPN & antivirus interrupting the connection to having an incorrect system clock. 5. 5 RT tickets: Reports of websites blocking Tor. 6. 3 RT tickets: Questions about removal of automatic .onion site prioritization in Tor Browser. 7. 3 RT tickets: Help with installing Tor Browser on Linux. 8. 2(↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.

Highlighting some other topics we received questions and feedback:

9. Help with verifying Tor Browser's signature. 10. Question if Tor Browser can be installed on Chromebooks[4] 11. Report of an app on iOS App Store masquerading as Tor Browser. 12. Troubleshooting Tor Browser post-update on Windows. Issue with anti-virus software flagging Tor Browser. 13. Troubleshooting Tor Browser install on macOS. User was on a very old and unsupported version of macOS. 14. Questions about how to get started with Tor Browser after installation[5].

# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel

* 628(↑) tickets resolved

Breakdown: * 592(↑) tickets on Telegram * 35(↑) tickets on WhatsApp * 1(↓) ticket on Signal

Tickets by numbers:

1. 351(↑) tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries. 2. 57(↑) tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi. 3. 49(↑) tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users. 4. 14 tickets: Which Tor apps to install on iOS and questions about Onion Browser and Orbot for iOS. 5. 3 tickets: Snowflake domain fronting issue with Fastly.

Highlighting some other topics we received questions about:

6. 2 tickets: Reports of onion services (not maintained by us) being offline. We asked the users to contact the concerned onion service maintainers. 7. 2 tickets: Help with GPG signature verification while installing Tor Browser. 8. 2 tickets: Instructions on how to fetch latest Tor Browser binaries from GetTor. 9. Help with troubleshooting Tor Browser for Android. 10. Help with using bridges with Tor Browser on TailsOS. 11. Help with installing Tor Browser on Linux (ArchLinux). 12. Question whether Tor Browser is supported on AndroidTV.

# Highlights from the Tor Forum

1. Snowflake add-on no longer listed on addons.mozilla.org[6]. 2. iPad: Need Help With Download & Installation (Onion Browser and Orbot)[7]. 3. Removal of automatic .onion site prioritization in Tor Browser[8]. 4. (Fix) Problems with Snowflake since 2024-03-01: "broker failure Unexpected error, no answer."[9]

Thanks! e.

Note: (↑), (↓) and (-) are indicating if the number of tickets we received for these topics have been increasing, decreasing or have been the same from the previous month respectively.

[0]: https://github.com/torproject/tor4zh/ [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/135 [2]: https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-13012/ [3]: https://support.torproject.org/little-t-tor/install-little-t-tor/ [4]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-15/ [5]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/running-tor-browser/ [6]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/snowflake-add-on-no-longer-listed-on-addons-m... [7]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/ipad-need-help-with-download-installation/118... [8]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/connect-to-onion-when-available/12134 [9]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/fix-problems-with-snowflake-since-2024-03-01-...