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 distinguish connecting clients by transport protocol, which may include pluggable transports, so that graphs are available for different transports. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2016-09-07 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "September 6 2016 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 72F8AD2CD7C97D173AD53276366EAD32B13E0A50, geoip6-db-digest B6427DEAD2291FBF8311A2233AF4960BF4009713).
commit |
| 2016-09-04 | Iran <OR> |
Iran intensifies the blocking begun on 2016-08-20, getting most of the remaining direct users. There is interference in the graphs from the bridge authority changeover on 2016-09-02, but because the changeover would not have affected counts of ''direct'' users, it may be a coincidence.
ticket |
| 2016-09-02 | Bridges |
The former bridge authority Tonga shuts down. Bridges that have not updated to tor 0.2.8.7 or 0.2.9.2-alpha (which include all 5 default obfs3 bridges and 3/16 default obfs4 bridges) stop reporting statistics.
shutdown notice blog post loss of reporting bridges |
| 2016-08-31 | Bridges |
CollecTor begins publishing bridge stats from the new bridge authority Bifroest.
post |
| 2016-08-24 | Bridges |
tor 0.2.8.7 and 0.2.9.2-alpha are released, changing the bridge authority from Tonga to Bifroest.
0.2.8.7 announcement |
| 2016-08-24 | China <OR> Unknown |
Large decrease in users in China.
relay bridge |
| 2016-08-20 | Iran <OR> |
Iran somehow blocks most direct Tor connections. May also affect bridge users, but it's hard to tell because there were few vanilla bridge users anyway.
ticket |
| 2016-08-18 to 2016-08-29 | Mali Unknown |
Sudden increase of direct and bridge users in Mali.
relay graph bridge graph |
| 2016-08-18 | meek |
Changed the meek-amazon CDN price class from "All" to "Use Only US, Canada and Europe."
|
| 2016-08-12 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "August 2 2016 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 9DD185BEC4F482DDD20A0221B3DD3F40175F0123, geoip6-db-digest B1C1B6BDC9627E3D87530A2C70578AC69C20C5C6).
commit |
| 2016-07-21 to 2017-03-03 | Brazil meek Unknown |
Sustained increase in meek users in Brazil. Locals believe that they are not actual users, rather bots or something like that. End date coincides with shutdown of meek-azure before migration. Would pick up again 2017-06-07.
graph |
| 2016-07-18 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "July 6 2016 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 19FC902B6A860BA7E4BADCB5404482995F7E0763, geoip6-db-digest 7E717154718F2065240B90F8132F305AF78C9A9D).
commit |
| 2016-07-15 | Turkey <OR> |
Coup attempt in Turkey. A paper (§ 4.1) reports a decline in Tor users.
paper relay graph |
| 2016-07-07 | Zimbabwe |
Four-hour block of WhatsApp in Zimbabwe.
article |
| 2016-06-12 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "June 7 2016 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest DA31976A9C7D48C2C16EA70BCE9006772A0F4A34, geoip6-db-digest FF1DD08CA9EB6528E1A6389E7154BD9586F24370).
commit |
| 2015-12-31 to 2020-06-04 | Mexico |
The Telmex ISP in Mexico blocks seven directory authorities.
mailing list post article |