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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-11-25 to 2017-11-27 | Pakistan |
Social media block in Pakistan.
article NetBlocks data OONI/Bytes For All report |
| 2017-11-15 | <OR> Relays |
Release of Tor Browser 7.5a8, containing tor 0.3.2.4-alpha, which adds a new directory authority bastet, and changes the IP address of the directory authority Longclaw.
blog post |
| 2017-11-15 | meek |
Outage of meek-amazon bridge.
ticket |
| 2017-11-14 | <OR> Relays |
Release of Tor Browser 7.0.10, containing tor 0.3.1.8, which adds a new directory authority bastet, and changes the IP address of the directory authority Longclaw.
blog post |
| 2017-11-11 to 2017-11-12 |
Outage of the op-hk OnionPerf instance.
op-hk graph |
|
| 2017-11-10 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "November 6 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest E3C910F3B2A6C916C7BE33A943091EF57048B72C, geoip6-db-digest E8BD5B2E6554C27F718F1222667C09680D75F799).
commit |
| 2017-11-01 | meek |
Turned off the old meek-amazon CDN endpoint d2zfqthxsdq309.cloudfront.net.
mailing list post |
| 2017-11-01 | Russia |
Ban on VPNs and anonymizers takes effect in Russia.
news article law |
| 2017-10-30 to 2017-11-06 | Zambia <OR> Relays Unknown |
Short-lived tripling of relay users in Zambia.
graph |
| 2017-10-25 | <OR> Relays |
Release of tor 0.2.5.15, 0.2.8.16, 0.2.9.13, 0.3.0.12, and 0.3.1.8, which add a new directory authority bastet, and change the IP address of the directory authority Longclaw.
blog post Bastet blog post bastet ticket Longclaw ticket |
| 2017-10-18 to 2017-10-24 | China |
19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
wikipedia Psiphon users |
| 2017-10-14 | snowflake |
Activated client IP address statistics on the Snowflake server and standalone proxies.
comment |
| 2017-10-07 to 2017-12-20 | Romania <OR> Relays Unknown |
Surge of relay users in Romania, from 10k to around 90k, which later subsided.
graph metrics-team thread |
| 2017-10-05 | China |
Guo Wengui speaks at the National Press Club, 09:00–11:00 eastern time. Reports of disruption of VPNs, Tor, Psiphon, Lantern, Shadowsocks in China.
article on conference tweet tweet tweet |
| 2017-10-05 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "October 4 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 3A59213E5CFEE380F544B72DC1105366C6BD1CDE, geoip6-db-digest 1B8C975E5C62CF0FB5B4E598AE27B7189952BB09).
commit |
| 2017-10-04 | fte |
Permanent hardware failure of default FTE bridge 128.105.214.161:8080.
comment |
| 2017-10-01 to 2018-03-01 | Cameroon |
Internet shutdown in parts of Cameroon.
article article |
| 2017-09-26 to 2017-10-22 | Germany <OR> Relays Unknown |
Steady increase of relay users in Germany, from 180k to around 500k. It would increase further starting 2017-12-10.
de graph Reddit thread ticket |
| 2017-09-20 | Puerto Rico |
Hurricane Maria hits Puerto Rico.
graph wikipedia |
| 2017-09-15 to 2017-10-12 |
Outage of the op-hk OnionPerf instance. Reported timeouts on the tor network increased, download speed improved.
mailing list post torperf graph torperf-failures graph op-hk graph |
|
| 2017-09-15 to 2017-09-16 | Bridges |
The bridge authority was down due to an issue with its offline master key.
graph mailing list post |
| 2017-09-14 to 2017-09-16 | Bridges |
Outage of the bridge authority Bifroest.
|
| 2017-09-07 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "September 6 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 0CE9EA8882EDED265451C36B49AE7BBB06A11C16, geoip6-db-digest C4573496EBD1CC335843067107DA49E482568FF6).
commit |
| 2017-09-06 | Puerto Rico |
Hurricane Irma hits Puerto Rico.
graph wikipedia |
| 2017-09-02 to 2017-09-21 | obfs4 Unknown |
About a 35% increase in obfs4 users before returning to normal. Happened in many countries. Other transports do not have it.
graph |
| 2017-09-01 to 2017-09-20 | obfs4 |
A flood of over 4,000 obfs4 bridges nicknamed "Machiavelli".
graph of number of bridges tor-relays post metrics-team thread tweet |
| 2017-08-27 to 2017-08-29 | Egypt Turkey <OR> Relays Unknown |
Short-lived, simultaneous spike in direct users in Egypt and Turkey. Bridge users not affected.
eg graph tr graph |
| 2017-08-23 | Korea, Republic of <OR> Relays Unknown |
Increase of users in South Korea, relay only.
graph |
| 2017-08-15 | Hong Kong <OR> Relays Unknown |
Triple increase in direct Tor users in Hong Kong. Bridge users not affected.
relay graph |
| 2017-08-14 to 2017-08-15 | Bridges |
Outage of the bridge authority Bifroest.
mailing list post mailing list post graph |
| 2017-08-14 | ipv6 obfs4 Unknown |
Jump in IPv6 users of the Lisbeth default obfs4 bridge.
comment |
| 2017-08-10 to 2017-08-11 |
Outage of the op-hk OnionPerf instance. Reported timeouts on the tor network increased, download speed improved.
torperf graph torperf-failures graph op-hk graph |
|
| 2017-08-08 | snowflake |
Tor Browser 7.5a4 released, including Snowflake for macOS.
blog post |
| 2017-08-07 to present | Congo, The Democratic Republic of the |
The Democratic Republic of the Congo orders a block of social media services.
article relay graph bridge graph |
| 2017-08-06 to 2017-10-07 | Seychelles <OR> Relays Unknown |
Further increase of relay users in the Seychelles, from 5k to 100k. Stopped at the same time as increases in the Netherlands, Romania, and Lithuania.
relay graph post suggesting link to 2× dirauth bandwidth post about start post about end |
| 2017-08-03 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "August 3 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 75AABD32582AC554AF252DDC7BBBABE7C6F28B28, geoip6-db-digest A52EFFEF8CF6F3CAA8EBD34961361544E959FAE1).
commit |
| 2017-08-02 to 2017-10-07 | Lithuania <OR> Relays Unknown |
Increase of relay users in Lithuania, from 2k to 70k. Stopped at the same time as increases in the Netherlands, Romania, and the Seychelles.
relay graph post suggesting link to 2× dirauth bandwidth post about start post about end |
| 2017-07-31 to 2017-10-07 | Netherlands <OR> Relays Unknown |
Increase of relay users in the Netherlands, from 50k to 100k. Stopped at the same time as increases in Romania, Lithuania, and the Seychelles.
relay graph post suggesting link to 2× dirauth bandwidth post about start post about end |
| 2017-07-31 to 2017-10-07 | Romania <OR> Relays Unknown |
Increase of relay users in Romania, from 10k to 40k. Bridge users not affected. Stopped at the same time as increases in the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the Seychelles. Another increase began immediately after.
relay graph post suggesting link to 2× dirauth bandwidth |
| 2017-07-31 to 2017-08-28 | Unknown |
Directory authorities using 2× bandwidth.
mailing list post for start mailing list post for end post suggesting link to nl, ro, lt, sc increases |
| 2017-07-31 to 2017-08-17 | Austria <OR> Relays Unknown |
Fluctuations of relay users in Austria. Bridge users not affected.
relay graph |
| 2017-07-29 to 2017-08-17 | meek |
Outage of meek-amazon bridge, caused by an expired certificate.
Relay Search expired certificate new certificate |
| 2017-07-15 to 2017-07-22 | Seychelles <OR> Relays Unknown |
Increase of relay users in the Seychelles, from 400 to 6000. Bridge users not affected.
relay graph |
| 2017-07-07 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "July 4 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 3D04F191098640F2E03B4D5F7800088D14B7EC30, geoip6-db-digest A3649B9E909C59942FB3D8F874AB4BEA36E8BEC1).
commit |
| 2017-07-04 to 2017-07-21 | obfs4 |
Outage of default obfs4 bridge frosty.
mailing list post |
| 2017-07-04 to 2017-07-21 | obfs4 |
Outage of default obfs4 bridge dragon.
mailing list post |
| 2017-07-02 |
deb.torproject.org upgrades from tor 0.2.9 to tor 0.3.0
relay versions graph tweet |
|
| 2017-07-01 | United Arab Emirates <OR> Relays Unknown |
Sudden drop in relay users.
graph |
| 2017-06-26 to 2017-07-02 | obfs4 |
Outage of default obfs4 bridge dragon.
mailing list post |
| 2017-06-26 to 2017-07-03 | obfs4 |
Outage of default obfs4 bridge frosty.
mailing list post |
| 2017-06-20 | meek |
Outage of meek-azure bridge.
start end |
| 2017-06-19 to 2017-06-23 | obfs4 |
Outage of default obfs4 bridge dragon.
mailing list post |
| 2017-06-18 to 2017-06-23 | obfs4 |
Outage of default obfs4 bridge frosty.
mailing list post |
| 2017-06-14 to 2017-07-06 | Mali Unknown |
Sudden increase of direct and bridge users in Mali.
relay graph bridge graph |
| 2017-06-13 | Switzerland obfs4 Unknown |
Increase in obfs4 users in Switzerland, from 200 to 400.
bridge graph transport graph |
| 2017-06-12 | obfs4 |
Increased the file descriptor limit on default obfs4 bridges ndnop3 and ndnop5 from 4096 to 32768. They had been failing bootstrap attempts from a test location in the U.S. about 40% of the time.
graph showing failed connections |
| 2017-06-09 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "June 8 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest AFD609025B66305AD9FA8E0B15AF4F2BC82271F1, geoip6-db-digest A69FD14ACE46EE695F589ACE0EB7B915285B51B4).
commit |
| 2017-06-07 to 2017-12-14 | Brazil meek Unknown |
Sustained increase of meek users in Brazil, similar to the one that took place between 2016-07-21 and 2017-03-03.
graph |
| 2017-06-07 | ipv6 obfs4 |
Tor Browser 7.0 released. Adds an IPv6 address for default obfs4 bridge Lisbeth. Adds new default obfs4 bridges frosty and dragon.
blog post IPv6 ticket frosty and dragon ticket |
| 2017-05-23 to 2017-06-13 | obfs4 |
Default obfs4 bridge LeifEricson rejects connections due to a broken firewall forwarding rule. This didn't affect the bridges "real" obfs4 port, but it did affect the port at that time configured in Tor Browser.
|
| 2017-04-14 to 2017-08-20 | <OR> |
Directory authority maatuska's bwscanner stops operating, leading to a drop in traffic on some relays.
tor-consensus-health post about start tor-consensus-health post about end tor-dev thread analysis |
| 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 |
| 2017-02-09 to 2017-08-01 | India obfs3 Unknown |
Gradual but large increase of obfs3 users in India, followed by slow decay. Relay users and other transports seemingly not affected.
graph |
| 2017-02-06 to 2017-08-01 | United Arab Emirates obfs3 Unknown |
Increase in obfs3 users from the UAE, from 5K to 100K. Other transports not affected.
transport graph UAE bridge graph ticket |
| 2015-12-31 to 2020-06-04 | Mexico |
The Telmex ISP in Mexico blocks seven directory authorities.
mailing list post article |