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

ebanam · November 4, 2024, 8:57pm

Hello everyone,

This is a summary of the work I did in the month of October followed by
a more detailed report of the work done by our user support team.
With a number of Tor Browser releases including the last
major stable release of the year - Tor Browser 14 - much of my work
included alpha testing, updating the Tor Browser user manual[0] before
the release. And reviewing and updating the documentation[1] on Support
Portal and the various user support channels and keeping track of user
feedback after the release. I worked on a number of Tor Browser related
user support tickets - from general questions about installing, updating
and troubleshooting to bug reports. With the onset of the year-end
campaign[2], I also worked on related support tickets, answering
questions about Tor Browser. Topics include downloading, installing,
using the browser it's various privacy enhancing features and questions
about the Tor network in general.

Finally a huge part of my work was dedicated to help users in regions
where Tor is censored which includes but is not limited to helping users
with instructions to download Tor Browser binaries from GetTor and/or
official mirrors, verifying Tor Browser's GPG signature, help with using
censorship circumvention methods that works best for them and overall
troubleshooting.

Here's a more detailed breakdown of the tickets our user support team
worked on last month:

# Frontdesk (email user support channel)

* 668(↑) RT tickets created
* 683(↓) RT tickets resolved

Tickets by topics and numbers:
1. 267(↓) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users.
2. 207(↑) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries.
3. 12 RT tickets: help with Troubleshooting Tor Browser desktop on Windows, macOS
and Linux.
4. 6 RT tickets: help with updating Tor Browser and questions
about Tor Browser dropping support for legacy operating systems.[3]
5. 5 RT tickets: Tor Browser 14 crashing on macOS when visiting some
onionsites.[4]
6. 5 RT tickets: Questions about the various Security Levels[5] in Tor Browser
and issues with disabling JavaScript on higher security levels.
7. 5 RT tickets: configuring Orbot to use bridges.
8. 3(↑) RT tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
9. 3 RT tickets: Letterboxing is visible even if disabled when using Tor Browser
on Tiled window managers.[6]
10. 3 RT tickets: Instructions to download Tor Browser 13.5 legacy for
legacy operating systems.[7]
11. 2 RT tickets: questions about how Tor works - is my IP visible when using
Tor? what application level protections I get when using Tor Browser? etc.
12. Help with verifying Tor Browser signature with GPG.
13. One report of Tor Browser 14 getting flagged by anti-virus software on
Windows.
14. One report of a fake app on iOS masquerading as official Tor Browser.
15. Question about using Tor bridges with Tails.
16. Instructions to use GetTor to fetch Tor Browser binaries.
17. One report of a website blocking Tor traffic.
18. Question about the various keys used by Tor[8].
19. Tor Browser fails to work on Linux is dbus-glib is not installed[9].
This issue should be fixed with Tor Browser 14.

# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel

* 1023(↑) tickets resolved

Breakdown:
* 1003(↑) tickets on Telegram
* 20(↓) tickets on WhatsApp
* 0(-) ticket on Signal

Tickets by topics and numbers:

1. 667(↑) tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking
countries.
2. 32(↑) tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese
speaking users.
3. 24(↓) tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
4. 23 tickets: helping users on iOS, using Onion Browser or
Orbot, to use censorship circumvention methods.
5. 16 tickets: help with troubleshooting Tor Browser Desktop
on Windows, macOS and Linux.
6. 8 tickets: help with installing Tor Browser on linux.
7. 8 tickets: help with troubleshooting Tor Browser on Android.
8. 7 tickets: help with instructions to use bridges with Tails.
9. 7 tickets: questions about various features in Tor Browser
(Letterboxing, Security Levels, New Circuit, New Identity, etc.)
10. 6 tickets: instructions on how to get Tor Browser binaries from GetTor.
11. 5 tickets: Tor Browser 14 crashing on macOS when visiting some onionsites.[4]
12. 5 tickets: Users seeing a "proxy refused" error when visiting websites on
Tor Browser for Android using Samsung devices.[10]
13. 4 tickets: help with using bridges with Orbot.
14. 4 tickets: questions about accessing or setting up onion services.
15. 3 tickets: help with setting up Snowflake proxy.
16. 2 tickets: help with using bridges and snowflake with little-t-tor.
17. 1 ticket: Tor Browser 14 displaying a security notification on latest
versions of Ubuntu.[11]
18. 1 ticket: User seeing a "proxy refused" error when visiting websites on Tor Browser
for Android using a Xiaomi device.[12]
19. 1 ticket: Instructions to download Tor Browser 13.5 legacy for legacy
operating systems.

# Highlights from the Tor Forum

1. Configuring little-t-tor to use pluggable transports (obfs4,
WebTunnel, etc.). [13]
2. Security warning on Tor Browser 14+ on latest versions of Ubuntu.[14]
3. Running Tor Browser with Wayland windowing system on Linux.[15]
4. Download Tor Browser 13.5 legacy on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 and macOS 10.12, 10.13 and 10.14 [7]
5. Unable to render images when uploading/downloading them via Tor Browser.[16]
6. Installing Tor Browser on (Kali) Linux - troubleshooting issue with permissions.[17]

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.

Thanks everyone!
e.