[tor-project] ebanam's monthly status report and user support report for December 2023

[ebanam]

Hello everyone!

Like the past few months, much of my focus in December was to help users
in regions where Tor is censored which includes but is not limited to
using pluggable transports which are likely to work in their region,
help with troubleshooting and answering other common Tor Browser related
questions.

With four Tor Browser stable releases I also worked on post-release user
support work. We received numerous reports of PTs crashing for users on
Windows 7 after the Tor Browser 13.0.7 update. Although the issue is
resolved now (with Tor Browser 13.0.8) we expect to see more tickets
from Windows 7 as Tor Browser will neccessarily have to drop support for
Windows 7 and 8 after the Firefox ESR 128 transition this year. For any
Windows 7 tickets we receive, we are encouraging Tor Browser users to
either upgrade their systems to a modern Linux distribution, or at least
to a supported version of Windows (10 or higher).

Following is a thorough breakdown of tickets our user support team
handled in December:

# Frontdesk (email support channel)

* 537(↓) RT tickets created
* 474(↓) RT tickets resolved

Tickets by numbers:

1. 199(↓) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking
users.
2. 150(↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian
speaking countries.
3. 5 RT tickets: PTs on Tor Browser 13 do not work
with Windows 7 (issue is resolved with Tor Browser 13.0.8)[0]
4. 2 RT tickets: "Proxy Server Refused Connection" on Tor Browser for Android
specific to Oppo/Realme devices[1]

Highlighting some other topics we received questions and feedback:
5. Circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
6. Help with setting up onion service
7. Explaination about the "New Identity" and "New Tor Circuit" in Tor Browser[2]
8. How to import bookmarks in Tor Browser from other browsers[3]
9. Adding a search engine to Tor Browser
10. One report of an app masquerading as official Tor Browser app on iOS AppStore.
11. Tor Browser binary disappeared on Windows (this was likely because of anti-virus
software installed on the user's system)
12. Contributing and volunteering to Tor
13. Tor Browser crashes when extensions popups are opened with Wayland enabled[4]
14. Images unable to render on some sites due to HTML5 Canvas fingerprinting
being blocked in Tor Browser

# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel

*  550(↓) tickets resolved

Breakdown:

* 521(↓) tickets on Telegram
* 16(↓) tickets on WhatsApp
* 13(↑) tickets on Signal

Tickets by numbers:

1. 349(↑) tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries.
2. 23(↓) tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users.
3. 42(-) tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
4. 8 tickets: PTs on Tor Browser 13 do not work with Windows 7
(issue is resolved with Tor Browser 13.0.8)


Highlighting some other topics we received questions about:
5. 2 tickets: user feedback about WebTunnel from regions where Tor is censored
6. 2 tickets: Configuring little-t-tor to use Pluggable Transports
7. 2 tickets: Unable to reach some onion site (these particular onion sites were offline)
8. "Proxy Server Refused Connection" on Tor Browser for Android specific to Oppo/Realme devices
9. Question about letterboxing on Tor Browser


# Highlights from the Tor Forum

1. Tor Browser freezes/lags after update[5]
2. Tor Browser locking up on Windows 10 with all the latest patches[6]
3. Onion sites unreachable[7] (These are all v2 onion sites, which have been
deprecated way back in 2021)[8]

Thanks!
e.

Note: (↑), (↓) and (-) are indicating if the number of tickets we
received for these topics have been increasing, decreasing or have been
the same from the previous month respectively.

[0]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42179
[1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41289
[2]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/managing-identities/
[3]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/export-and-import-bookmarks/
[4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42306
[5]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/problem-tor-freezes-lags-after-update-to-v13-0-6/10615
[6]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-browser-locking-up-on-windows-10-with-all-the-latest-patches/10385/
[7]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/impossible-dafficher-le-contenu-des-pages/10485
[8]: https://support.torproject.org/onionservices/v2-deprecation/