[tor-project] December 2018 User Feedback Summary

[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.

- 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.


---

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?

---

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.

---

Most common stack exchange tags:

tor-browser-bundle: 12 this month
configuration: 8 this month
help: 5 this month
orbot: 5 this month

---

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

---


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

------

Annotations:
1.
https://storm.torproject.org/shared/u4ch1acnksyrZD2Zu8_ODT2l_Va8iMPgqWQU41g5F1H
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

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