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/snowf... [5]: https://support.torproject.org/little-t-tor/install-little-t-tor/ [6]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf... [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/... [9]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-browser-having-weird-font-while-other-bro... [10]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/firefox-esr-root-certificates-strange-rollbac...