Hello all,
This is my monthly report for the month of May. In preparation for the upcoming Tor Browser 13.5 release I worked on a number of documentation related tickets both in the Tor Browser User Manual[0] and the Support Portal[1].
Aside from which much of my focus was helping users in regions where is Tor is censored, which involves helping users to install Tor Browser through GetTor or our official mirrors, helping with using bridges and snowflake, troubleshoot errors and collecting user feedback, in general.
Number of tickets via email from Russian speaking regions are still low albeit investigating this drop we haven't yet found the main issue. We plan to run a deeper investigation in June. That said, we have seen a surge in tickets on our Telegram support channel from the region, which remains the most popular user support platform for users in Russian speaking countries.
Following is a thorough breakdown of tickets our user support team handled in May:
# Frontdesk (email support channel)
* 497(↑) RT tickets created * 467(↓) RT tickets resolved
Tickets by numbers:
1. 262(↓) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users. 2. 79(↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries. 3. 6 RT tickets: help with installing and troubleshooting Tor Browser on Windows. 4. 4 (↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
Highlighting some other topics we received questions and feedback:
5. 4 RT tickets: Reports of issues with an onion service. This particular onion service was down and we asked the users to report this to the onion service operator. 6. 1 RT ticket: Report of website blocking Tor traffic. 7. 1 RT ticket: Report of a fake app on iOS App Store masquerading as Tor Browser.
# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel
* 631(↑) tickets resolved
Breakdown: * 607 (↑) tickets on Telegram * 23 (-) tickets on WhatsApp * 1 (↓) ticket on Signal
Tickets by numbers:
1. 378 (↑) tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries. 2. 51 (↓) tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi. 3. 43 (↓) tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users.
Highlighting some other topics we received questions about:
4. 4 tickets: instructions on how to fetch Tor Browser binaries from GetTor. 5. 3 tickets: help with installing and using bridges with little-t-tor. 6. 3 tickets: questions about setting up onion services. 7. 2 tickets: instructions on how to use bridges and snowflake with Orbot. 8. 2 tickets: help with troubleshooting Tor Browser on Windows.
# Highlights from the Tor Forum
1. Troubleshooting little-t-tor[2] 2. How I can get obfs4 bridges?[3]
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://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/manual/-/commits/main?author=ebanam [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/support/-/commits/main?author=ebanam [2]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/little-t-tor-package-linux-not-working-with-b... [3]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/how-can-i-get-new-bridges/12635