[tor-project] Joydeep's Monthly Status Report for July 2022

[Joydeep Sen Gupta]

Hello everyone!

These are my updates from the month of July. With the major Tor Browser
11.5 release, much of my work this month was concentrated around it. I
updated the documentation on the Tor Browser User Manual[1], Support
Portal[2] and various other documentation we maintain for user
support[3]. We got a number of user support requests, as is usual with a
major Tor Browser release with users reporting a couple of bugs[4][5].
These bugs are now fixed in the Tor Browser 11.5.1 release!

With Tor Browser 11.5, we also have Connection Assist[6] in the stable
browser and I have been working to gain feedback about the Circumvention
map[7] in order to improve this feature.

There has been a major uptick in requests for unlisted obfs4 bridges,
mostly from users in China and Turkmenistan[8]. On the Android front, we
got multiple reports of the bug in rendering webpages on Samsung S22
device (this is a device specific issue)[9].

That pretty much sums up the highlights from last month and following
are some quick stats and highlights from our official support channels.

## Frontdesk

Timeline : 01 July - 31 July 2022

Tickets:

new: 42
open: 20
resolved: 467

Breakdown of number of RT tickets received with respect to operating
system:

(Note: This includes tickets where the user mentioned the operating
system or it was evident from the issue they were running into and/or
enclosed screenshots.)

Windows - 22
macOS - 16
GNU/Linux - 3
Android- 18

Breakdown of most frequent tickets (at least 3 RT tickets):

1. 141 RT Tickets - How to use Tor Bridges in Russia.[10]

2. 101 RT Tickets - Private Bridge requests. This is not related to the
.ru censorship but requests from Tor users in China, Iran, etc.[11]

3. 6 RT Tickets - Bug in rendering webpages on Tor Browser for Android,
specific to the Samsung S22 device[9]

4. 4 RT Tickets - Tor Browser 11.5 incompatible with macOS 10.12[12]

5. 3 RT Tickets - Questions and feedback[13] about the new features in
Tor Browser Desktop -- Bridge-moji[14] & Connection Assist.


## Tor Forum

Most popular topics in the Support category (in terms of no. of views):

1. "Too many connections (to a single relay) (DDoS 2022.07.02)".[15]

2. "Cannot open any site correctly with Tor (Browser)"[16]

3. "Do my Snowflakes work?"[17]

4. "Testing Invitation for Tor Browser with supported_groups patch
countermeasure in Snowflake to evade censorship observed in Russia"[18]

5. "The “Continue to HTTP site” button in HTTPS-only mode doesn’t
work"[19]

Thanks,

-- Joydeep


[1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/manual/-/issues/119
[2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/support/-/issues/298
[3]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40073
[4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41059
[5]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41050
[6]: https://support.torproject.org/glossary/connection-assist/
[7]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40086
[8]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/issues/40029
[9]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216
[10]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-censorship/982
[11]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/
[12]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/version-of-tor-browser-compatible-with-macos-10-11/1038/3
[13]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41093
[14]: https://support.torproject.org/glossary/bridge-moji/
[15]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/too-many-connections-ddos-2022-07-02/3827
[16]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/cannot-open-any-site-correctly-with-tor/4028
[17]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/do-my-snowflakes-work/4069
[18]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/testing-invitation-for-tor-browser-with-supported-groups-patch-countermeasure-in-snowflake-to-evade-censorship-observed-in-russia/4029
[19]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/the-continue-to-http-site-button-in-https-only-mode-doesnt-work/3969