[tor-project] ebanam's monthly status report and user support report for April 2024

[ebanam]

Hello all,

Thanks to the outreach work[0], this month we saw another uptick in support
requests from Chinese speaking users. This has also helped us receive some very
useful feedback from these users.

I worked on some small documentation updates in the Tor Browser User Manual[1]
and the Support Portal[2] and added a section in the manual about how to check
the Tor Browser version one has installed on their system[3]. I am also
involved in testing the latest Tor Browser Alphas in preparation of all the
documentation updates due to the upcoming Tor Browser 13.5 stable release.

We have noticed a significant drop in user requests via email from Russian
speaking countries last month and are investigating the potential reasons for that.

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

# Frontdesk (email support channel)

* 495(↓) RT tickets created
* 711(↑) RT tickets resolved

(Note: The number of 'resolved' ticket is higher
than usual because last month I closed a lot of tickets that we had already
responded to and solved but got reopened and move out of the 'resolved' queue
when users share their positive feedback.)

Tickets by numbers:

1. 313(↑) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users.
2. 85(↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries.
3. 8 RT tickets: Reports of websites blocking Tor connections.
4. 7 RT tickets: Help with downloading (website / official mirror / GetTor),
installing and updating Tor Browser for Desktop.
5. 5(↑) RT tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
6. 4(↓) 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.

Highlighting some other topics we received questions and feedback:

7. Issue with installing the Snowflake web extension.[4]
8. Question about whether Tor Browser can be installed on AndroidTV.
9. Report of certain onion site being offline. Encouraged the person to
contact the onion site operator directly.
10. Help with setting snowflake standalone proxy.
11. Help with setting onion service.
12. Question about whther Tor Browser can be installed on ChromeOS.
13. Question about how to modify torrc to exit from a specific country. We
discourage users to do this.
14. Help with installing little-t-tor.[5]
15. 2 RT tickets: Question about the Private Browsing Mode(PBM) in Tor Browser
- "why do I have to login every time to sites when I restart the browser?" and "why
does websites don't remember my preferences when I relaunch the browser?".


# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel

* 589(↓) tickets resolved

Breakdown:
* 563(↓) tickets on Telegram
* 23(↓) tickets on WhatsApp
* 3(↑) ticket on Signal

Tickets by numbers:

1. 372(↑) tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries.
2. 54(↓) tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
3. 46(↓) tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users.
4. 8 tickets: Help with installing Tor Browser on macOS.
5. 5 tickets: Issues installing the snowflake web extension.[4][6]
6. 3 tickets: Instructions to use bridges with little-t-tor.

Highlighting some other topics we received questions about:

7. 3 tickets: Issues loading the CAPTCHA when trying to get bridges from
BridgeDB. The issue is resolved.
8. Question about the Private Browsin Mode(PBM) in Tor Browser - "why does Tor
Browser on Android doesn't store my browsing history?"
9. Help with installing Tor Browser on Windows.
10. Report of website blocking Tor connections.


# Highlights from the Tor Forum

1. New Tor Browser Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.5a7. Please help us test the
new alpha![7]
2. Latest versions of Tor Browser not working on older versions of operating systems.[8]
3. Should I change/add fonts to Tor Browser?[9]
4."Firefox ESR Root Certificate's Strange Rollback"[10]


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/web/manual/-/commits/main?author=ebanam
[2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/support/-/commits/main?author=ebanam
[3]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/check-torbrowser-version/
[4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake-webext/-/issues/93
[5]: https://support.torproject.org/little-t-tor/install-little-t-tor/
[6]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake-webext/-/issues/95
[7]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-13-5a7/12519
[8]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-browser-v12-0-4-not-working-older-system/7078/3
[9]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-browser-having-weird-font-while-other-browser-doesnt/12400
[10]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/firefox-esr-root-certificates-strange-rollback/12277
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