Hi everyone,
some of you may already know our new approach to estimating daily Tor users:
https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html#userstats
This new approach is in beta since April, and I'm quite happy with it. I trust the new numbers more than the old ones, both for direct users and bridge users. The new code for direct users is quite similar to the old one, but much cleaner. The approach for bridge users is a much better idea than the old hack. Today I added the missing features like the top-10 lists and the censorship detector.
Why do I tell you this?
Because the old approach uses resources on our poor, already overloaded metrics machine, and I'm planning to shut down the old approach in the very near future. Here's the plan:
- Compute user numbers for 2012 and before; the current numbers start on January 1, 2013. This is going to take at least until September 23.
- Take out the "BETA" labels and throw out everything above "New approach to estimating daily Tor users (BETA)". This could happen on October 1.
Thoughts? Did I miss anything that's worth keeping? Anyone want to create an archive of their favorite graphs before I pull the plug?
All the best, Karsten