Users
We estimate the number of users by analyzing the requests induced by clients to relays and bridges.
This graph shows the estimated number of clients connecting via bridges. These numbers are derived from directory requests counted on bridges. Bridges resolve client IP addresses of incoming directory requests to country codes, so that graphs are available for most countries. For further details check the documentation on Reproducible Metrics.
Related events
The following events have been manually collected in the metrics-timeline Git repository and might be related to the displayed graph.
| Dates | Places/Protocols | Description and Links |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-08-09 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "August 7 2018 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 4C2E4FF8220FFFB4989564728701016DF705BCBF, geoip6-db-digest F3F5C576BF3E8D5FD9F6F33603D7BFD64DEAA8B5).
commit |
| 2018-08-04 to 2018-08-05 |
Collector was missing consensuses. They were recovered via recent relay consensus diffs.
metrics-team thread tor-relays thread |
|
| 2018-07-29 to 2018-08-08 | Bangladesh |
Protests over road safety in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Reports of mobile network throttling and blocking of Facebook.
New York Times article Daily Star article on throttling NetBlocks report |
| 2018-07-28 to present | Turkey Relays Unknown |
Another jump of relay users in Turkey, from 5k to about 30k.
relay graph bridge graph |
| 2018-07-21 | Bridges |
The estimated number of bridge users becomes available again, following the introduction of the new bridge authority Serge on 2018-07-13. The stats took about a week to reappear because of the discontinuity in bridge reporting affecting the estimated fraction of reporting bridges.
mailing list post graph |
| 2018-07-20 to 2019-05-02 | onion Unknown |
The number of v2 onion services increases from 70k to 100k.
comment |
| 2018-07-15 | snowflake |
Made the Snowflake bridge report to the new Serge bridge authority.
comment |
| 2018-07-14 | Bridges |
Release of Tor 0.2.9.16, 0.3.2.11, 0.3.3.9, and 0.3.4.5-rc. Switches bridge authority from Bifroest to Serge. The number of bridges begins counting up from zero as bridges are upgraded. The estimated number of bridge users remained unavailable until 2018-07-21 because of the discontinuity.
announcement ticket blog post number of bridges graph |
| 2018-07-14 to 2018-07-25 | Iraq |
Protests, Internet shutdowns, and social media blocks in Iraq.
relay graph NetBlocks post NRT article about end Psiphon users |
| 2018-07-13 | Bridges |
The replacement bridge authority Serge begins publishing bridge descriptors.
ticket ticket number of bridges graph |
| 2018-07-06 | Bridges |
The bridge authority Bifroest stops publishing bridge descriptors. Bridge stats are unavailable until 2018-07-13 and the introduction of a new bridge authority.
ticket ticket mailing list post number of bridges graph |
| 2018-07-06 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "July 3 2018 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest CFFD7B0544879150A31F966E83DBB7DDDFA16F49, geoip6-db-digest B25710F60CB23F0C76F58AFB0A26A26ACB701BB2).
commit |
| 2018-07-04 to 2018-07-06 | snowflake |
Outage of the Snowflake bridge, caused by a full disk.
ticket |
| 2018-07-01 to present | Uganda |
A social media tax takes effect in Uganda. The government pressures ISPs to block VPNs.
relay graph bridge graph BBC article AllAfrica article OONI report |
| 2018-06-27 | meek |
Release of Tor Browser 8.0a9 with non-working meek.
blog post ticket |
| 2018-06-24 to 2018-07-06 | snowflake |
Metrics for Snowflake are missing, for unknown reasons. The gap is nearly contemporaneous with the gap the measurements for all transports/bridges caused by Bifroest–Serge bridge authority switchover, but starts about 2 weeks earlier in Snowflake's case.
ticket |
| 2018-06-20 to present | Venezuela |
Venezuela's largest ISP, CANTV, blocks direct access to Tor and the IP addresses of default bridges. meek and non-default bridges are reported to work.
ticket mailing list post Access Now report |
| 2018-06-11 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "June 7 2018 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 93112125248AD2C11A2531B934FD4AC03999738D, geoip6-db-digest BFD2B453F2D9DC875B7B0C464A185E6C3202534F).
commit |
| 2018-06-10 to 2018-07-11 | Turkey Relays Unknown |
Jump of relay users in Turkey, from 5k to about 30k. The timing of the beginning corresponds to the release of Tor Browser 7.5.5 and 8.0a8.
relay graph bridge graph comment |
| 2018-06-10 | meek |
Release of Tor Browser 8.0a8, removes meek-amazon option.
blog post |
| 2018-06-09 | meek |
Release of Tor Browser 7.5.5, removes meek-amazon option.
blog post |
| 2018-05-23 to 2018-07-01 | Bridges Unknown |
Sharp increase in bridge users in many unrelated countries, affecting even the global aggregate. Relay users unaffected. The graphs reach a peak around 2018-06-07 and then begin falling again. An incomplete sampling of affected countries: Bangladesh Chile Indonesia Morocco Venezuela.
relay graph bridge graph |
| 2018-05-22 to 2018-06-08 | Iraq obfs4 Unknown |
Increase in obfs4 users in Iraq, followed by a slow decrease. No matching change in relay users or other transports.
bridge graph |
| 2018-04-25 to 2018-07-02 | onion Unknown |
The number of v2 onion services increases from 70k to 120k.
ticket |
| 2017-03-01 to 2018-11-12 | United Arab Emirates <OR> Relays Unknown |
Another increase in relay users, slower and more sustained than the previous one.
graph ticket about end |
| 2015-12-31 to 2020-06-04 | Mexico |
The Telmex ISP in Mexico blocks seven directory authorities.
mailing list post article |