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

[Joydeep Sen Gupta]

Hello everyone!

This is my monthly report for the month of April. With two Tor Browser
releases in the past month (11.0.10 and 11.5a9), we received a few
reports of two Tor Browser for Android bugs, namely, "Tor Browser
crashing on launch" [1] and "Bug in rendering webpages" [2], I worked
with the users to gather feedback for the bug reports and have been
collaborating with the UX team to discuss the same during the weekly
team meetings. Other frequently asked questions involved questions about
setting up and using Snowflake [3], resisting censorship with Tor,
random websites blocking Tor connections and about how to change the
search engine from the default DuckDuckGo on Tor Browser.

Last month, we saw a total of 23 unique requests for unlisted obfs4
bridges (mostly from China). These requests are generally accompanied
with troubleshooting with the user.

As part of my ongoing work with improving the moderation workflow on the
Tor Forum, I have been looking for ways to improve the moderation queue
[4] and efficient use of the 'tags' on the forum [5]. I made some
progress in both of those tasks.

Documenting some our workflow with the Request Tracker for user
support, I authored a Community wiki article [6] on tips, best practices
and efficient use of RT.

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 Apr - 30 Apr 2022

Tickets:

new: 13 open: 1 resolved: 383 

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 - 15
macOS - 5
GNU/Linux - 5
Android- 15

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

1. 133 RT Tickets - How to use Tor Bridges in Russia. [7]

2. 23 RT Tickets - Private Bridge requests. This is not related to the
.ru censorship but requests from Tor users in China, Iran, etc. [8]

3. 4 RT Tickets - How to circumvent geo-based restrictions with Tor?

4. 4 RT Tickets - Tor Browser Android 11.0.8 crashes on launch [1]

5. 3 RT Tickets - How to change the default SE and add a new search
engine to Tor Browser? [9]

6. 3 RT Tickets - Bug  in rendering webpages (on Tor Browser for Android
on Samsung S22) [2]

7. 3 RT Tickets - Questions about the Snowflake proxy [3]


## Tor Forum

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

1. "Bridge Blocklist RU". [10]

2. "Administrator (on windows) vs root (on GNU/Linux) and Tor Browser".
[11]

3. "“Secure Connection Not Available” on https sites" [12]

4. "Is the (tor) RPM repository no longer maintained?" [13]

5. "(Setup a ) Tor node on live USB" [14]

Thanks,

-- Joydeep

[1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40212
[2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216
[3]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/what-is-snowflake/
[4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40060
[5]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40063
[6]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/team/-/wikis/Frontdesk:-Tips-for-using-the-Request-Tracker-efficiently-and-reporting
[7]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-censorship/982
[8]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/
[9]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/custom-search-engine-in-tor-browser/2574
[10]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/bridge-blocklist-ru/2989
[11]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/administrator-vs-root-and-tor-browser/2954
[12]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/secure-connection-not-available-on-https-sites/2913
[13]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/is-the-rpm-repository-no-longer-maintained/2912
[14]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-node-on-live-usb/2888