Hey, friends!
Welcome to the December 2018 user feedback report. For more information on what users and community members were talking about this month, check out the December 2018/January 2019 User Feedback pad [1].
TL;DR:
There were a bunch of releases this month, and lots of user bug reports in the blog post comments. Reddit was about the same as always (with a focus on VPN and fingerprinting questions), and RT brought in a lot of questions about bridges and TBA.
- Confusion about using a VPN with Tor continues to be common on Reddit and RT. I'm hoping that these questions will be addressed by the Tor v. VPN guide I'm writing up for the support portal, which will incorporate some of the information that pastly previously posted [2].
- People (especially Reddit users) have lots of questions about whether certain actions will allow them to be fingerprinted. I think we could address some of this with an expanded FAQ entry, and potentially by linking to EFF's Panopticlick [3] so that users can experiment with their settings themselves.
- Tor is still broken for screen readers. This is a high priority fix, not only because this issue may prevent users with impaired vision from using Tor, but also because the issue interferes with our commitment to making Tor easy to use for everyone.
Now, on to the feedback! Scroll further down to see a summary of Reddit posts, some points from Google Play Store reviews, a list of the most common Stack Exchange tags from the month, and a collection of some notable issues and bugs mentioned by users in December.
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Most common questions on Reddit:
- How can I hide the fact that I'm using Tor; or, should I use a VPN together with Tor? - (these questions appear all the time, and will be addressed in a Tor v. VPN doc I'm working on for the support portal.) - Will doing _____ allow me to be fingerprinted?
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TBA Reviews & Feedback on Google Play Store:
The average review score is currently 4.2. Reviews are a mix of people who are very excited to be able to use Tor on their mobile, people who are getting 'proxy server' errors, and people who are upset that it's slower than their usual browser. I will continue to investigate the reported 'proxy server' errors through related RT tickets. Users are also experiencing crashes on certain Android devices when attempting to download a file using TBA.
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Most common stack exchange tags:
tor-browser-bundle: 12 this month configuration: 8 this month help: 5 this month orbot: 5 this month
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Notable bugs, fixes, & issues:
#27503 [4] - Disabling accessibility on Windows breaks screen readers - OPEN (NEEDS INFORMATION)
#28720 [5] - NoScript blocks certain videos starting with 10.1.9.2rc2 on security level "safer" - CLOSED - FIXED
#28874 [6] - https://browserleaks.com/webgl crashes tab on 64bit Tor Browser for Windows - CLOSED - FIXED
#28836 [7] - Links on about:tor are not clickable anymore on Windows starting with 8.5a5 - OPEN - NEEDS REVIEW
#28705 [8] - Tor Browser on Android is crashing on newer Android devices (>= Android N) by file download - OPEN - NEEDS REVISION
#29043 [9] - NoScript freezes the browser when scripts are enabled (TB 8.5a6) - OPEN
#29032 [10] - Tor Browser 8.0.4 stops displaying text correctly in Virtualbox on Windows - OPEN
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That's it for the month of December! In the interest of keeping things short(ish), I've left out some other feedback. If you want to know more, please do check out the December 2018/January 2019 User Feedback pad [1] or reach out to me via email (waywardwyrd at riseup dot net) or IRC (wayward).
Thanks for reading! I'll see you all back here next month!
- wayward (Maggie)
pronouns: she/they | twitter: @meochaidha https://www.twitter.com/meochaidha pgp: 0626 9C68 D0CC 1A5B E41B 72F2 615E B878 975C 4CDC
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Annotations: 1. https://storm.torproject.org/shared/u4ch1acnksyrZD2Zu8_ODT2l_Va8iMPgqWQU41g5... 2. https://matt.traudt.xyz/posts/vpn-tor-not-mRikAa4h.html 3. https://panopticlick.eff.org/ 4. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27503 5. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28720 6. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28874 7. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28836 8. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28705 9. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29043 10. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29032
Maggie:
Hey, friends!
Welcome to the December 2018 user feedback report. For more information on what users and community members were talking about this month, check out the December 2018/January 2019 User Feedback pad [1].
TL;DR:
There were a bunch of releases this month, and lots of user bug reports in the blog post comments. Reddit was about the same as always (with a focus on VPN and fingerprinting questions), and RT brought in a lot of questions about bridges and TBA.
- Confusion about using a VPN with Tor continues to be common on Reddit
and RT. I'm hoping that these questions will be addressed by the Tor v. VPN guide I'm writing up for the support portal, which will incorporate some of the information that pastly previously posted [2].
- People (especially Reddit users) have lots of questions about whether
certain actions will allow them to be fingerprinted. I think we could address some of this with an expanded FAQ entry, and potentially by linking to EFF's Panopticlick [3] so that users can experiment with their settings themselves.
Pointing them to EFF's Panopticlick is not a good idea, I think. The Panopticlick is heavily biased towards non-Tor Browser browsers which means that Tor Browser users are essentially always sticking out, no matter how uniform they are *among* Tor Browser users.
We want a test that measures differences among Tor Browser users and could thus give a meaningful advice on "Is action X making me more fingerprintable with Tor Browser or not?". Alas, we are not there yet. FPCentral (https://fpcentral.tbb.torproject.org/) is a great step towards that goal but needs more love and someone who is actively driving this project.
[snip]
Georg
tor-project@lists.torproject.org
-
Georg Koppen -
Maggie