[tor-project] ebanam's monthly status report and user support report for September 2024

[ebanam]

Hello everyone,

This is a summary of the work I did in the month of September followed
by a more detailed report of the work done by our user support team. I
made some small additions to the user-facing documentation on our
Support Portal[0]. With 7 Tor Browser (Alpha and Stable) releases in the
month, I answered a number of Tor Browser related user support tickets
and allocated some time to test the latest Alpha releases. Majority of
my work was dedicated to help users in regions where Tor is censored
which includes but is not limited to helping users with instructions to
download Tor Browser binaries from GetTor and/or official mirrors,
verifying Tor Browser's GPG signature, help with using censorship
circumvention methods that works best for them and overall
troubleshooting.

Here's a more detailed breakdown of the tickets our user support team
worked on last month:

# Frontdesk (email user support channel)

* 543(↓) RT tickets created
* 712(↑) RT tickets resolved

Tickets by topics and numbers:

1. 322(↓) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking
users.
2. 193(↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian
speaking countries.
3. 8 RT tickets: help with installing Tor Browser on
desktop operating systems.
4. 6 RT tickets: questions about Tor Browser dropping support for legacy
operating systems, i.e. Windows 7/8/8.1 and macOS ≤ 10.14[1].
5. 3 RT tickets: questions about using Tor from users in Brazil after
X (Twitter) was blocked.
6. 3 RT tickets: Captchas missing when fetching bridges from BridgeDB[2].
7. 3 RT tickets: instructions to download Tor Browser binaries from
GetTor (email and Telegram).
8. 3 RT tickets: questions about contributing to Tor.
9. 2(↓) RT tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
10. 2 RT tickets: help with instructions to verify Tor Browser signature.
11. 2 RT tickets: reports of Letterboxing in Tor Browser visible even if
disabled with tiled window managers[3].
12. 2 RT tickets: reports of websites blocking Tor.
13. 2 RT tickets: reports of fake apps on iOS AppStore masquerading as
official Tor Browser.
14. 2 RT tickets: how to add/change default search engine on Tor Browser.
15. 2 RT tickets: questions about the 'Security Levels' in Tor Browser.
16. 1 RT ticket: help with setting up a Snowflake proxy.
17. 1 RT ticket: help with setting up a Bridge relay.
18. 1 RT ticket: anti-virus (on Windows) blocking Tor Browser.

# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel

* 814(↑) tickets resolved

Breakdown:
* 773(↑) tickets on Telegram
* 41(↑) tickets on WhatsApp
* 0(-) ticket on Signal

Tickets by topics and numbers:

1. 471(↓) tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking
countries.
2. 45(↓) tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi.
3. 30(↑) tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users.
4. 20 tickets: helping users on iOS, using Onion Browser or Orbot, to
use censorship circumvention methods.
5. 11 tickets: instructions on how to get Tor Browser binaries from GetTor.
6. 8 tickets: questions about what onion services are and how to access them.
7. 6 tickets: help with using bridges with Orbot.
8. 5 tickets: help with troubleshooting Tor Browser install on Linux.
9. 4 tickets: troubleshooting Tor Browser install on Android.
10. 3 tickets: instructions to use bridges with Tails.
11. 2 tickets: help with troubleshooting Tor Browser install on macOS.
12. 2 tickets: help with setting up Snowflake proxy.
13. 2 tickets: help with using bridges with little-t-tor.
14. 1 ticket: question about using Tor from a user in Brazil after
X (Twitter) was blocked.


# Highlights from the Tor Forum

1. Call for alpha testers to help test the latest Tor Alpha before Tor
Browser 14 release[4].
2. Disable compatibility mode on Windows 10/11 to
not get notified about Tor Browser dropping support for legacy operating
systems[5][1].
3. NoScript per-site permissions on Tor Browser[6].
4. Do not disable NoScript in Tor Browser[7].

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/web/support/-/commits/main?author=ebanam
[1]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tor-browser-and-legacy-os/
[2]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-September/021868.html
[3]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42670
[4]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-14-0a7/14862
[5]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/dont-understand-warning-about-windows-release/14463
[6]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/noscript-per-site-permissions-question-about-reset-on-restart/14839
[7]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/should-i-disable-noscript-in-tor-browser/14448
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