[tor-project] Tor user feedback update - September 2018

[Andie Eoch]

Hey all!

Welcome to September's user feedback update!

First, I'd like to introduce myself - my name is Maggie, and I'm the new user advocate! Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions, suggestions, concerns, or your highest quality gifs. You can find me as wayward on IRC, as @meochaidha on twitter, or through email at waywardwyrd at protonmail dot com.

I've started a new sheet to track user feedback and bug reports for the next months. Data from this month was gathered from comments on the Tor blog, r/TOR [1], IRC, and stackexchange. You can find the user feedback sheet below [2].

If you have any suggestions for new fields in this doc, or for other info to include in these monthly summaries, please let me know!

TL;DR: Overall, it looks like the team did a really stellar job of tackling issues that popped up after the TB 8.0 release. We still have room for improvement in terms of new user education, accessibility, and advocacy.
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Most popular tags on StackExchange:
- tor-browser-bundle: 5 this week, 26 this month
- configuration: 12 this month
- security: 9 this month
- windows: 10 this month
- linux: 8 this month
- hidden-services: 6 this month
- anonymity: 6 this month
- bridge: 5 this month

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The biggest issues of September have been:
- crashes on OSX after updating to TB 8.0.1+ (#27482) [3] - RESOLVED
- crashes with various linux distros:
------ older Ubuntu/Mint distros (#27508) [4] - OPEN
------ CentOS 6 (#27552) [5] - RESOLVED
- dissatisfaction with the changes to user agent spoofing (#26146) [6] - RESOLVED
- issues with UI after updating to TB 8.0, including missing bookmark bar (#27264) [7] and Tor icon (#27175) [8]; both RESOLVED
- NoScript is not saving per-site permissions (#27175) [9] - RESOLVED
- users are confused by the change to the location of circuit information - some users think it was removed (#27663) [10] - MODIFIED
- disabling accessibility on Windows breaks screenreaders (#27503) [11]. High priority - OPEN- Tor 0.3.4.8 is leaking memory (#27813) [12] - OPEN

(you can find a more complete list of TB8-related tickets below, as well! [13])

--

Common questions from users this month (many answered on FAQ, links in annotations):
- What is Tor [14], and why should I use it?
- Does using a VPN with Tor improve or harm privacy [15]?
- How can I use Tor on my iPad? [16]
- Do I need to use Tor for regular browsing; or, when is it appropriate to use Tor?
- Why is my relay using less bandwidth now that it received a guard flag [17]?
- My school blocked the Tor executable - how do I access Tor now?
- Does using a Firefox theme (night mode, etc.) with the Tor browser de-anonymize me?
- There's a lot of general confusion when things break (expectedly) in the higher security slider settings - perhaps we should consider how to make the effects of security levels clearer, or adding an FAQ entry?

--

Thanks, team! Come find me and say hi if you're at the Mexico City meeting this week, and give me all the feedback you have [18]!

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/annotations/
1. what do they think this is, an ACRONYM or something ? ? ? ? ?
2. https://storm.torproject.org/shared/mPq1dBuXpcPIk1W5QUI883VHHKpkgR65Z6RIJmGbFO3
3. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27482
4. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27508
5. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27552
6. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/26146
7. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27264
8. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27175
9. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27175
10. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27663
11. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27503
12. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/27813
13. [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=!closed&keywords=~tbb-8.0-issues](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=%21closed&keywords=%7Etbb-8.0-issues)
14. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#WhatIsTor
15. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#IsTorLikeAVPN
16. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#Mobile
17. https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#MyRelayRecentlyGotTheGuardFlagAndTrafficDroppedByHalf
18. https://imgur.com/a/Vr7gf0X

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Maggie

Tor Project Community Team
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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