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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-03-07 to 2018-03-15 | Sri Lanka |
Sri Lanka blocks Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Viber.
relay graph bridge graph article |
| 2018-03-05 to 2018-03-08 | Germany <OR> Relays Unknown |
Steady drop in the number of relay users in Germany, from 1.5M to 650k. (Drop coincides with the release of tor 0.3.2.10, 0.3.1.10, and 0.2.9.15, which offer better resistance against DoS attacks; as well as improvements in speed for downloads from onions graph; see this graph as well. More datapoints: DDoS of the network happened around the time that saw an increase in the number of relay users in Germany, see entry above or graph)
graph ticket |
| 2018-03-03 |
Release of tor 0.3.2.10, 0.3.1.10, and 0.2.9.15, which offer better resistance against DoS attacks.
blog post ticket |
|
| 2018-02-27 to 2018-03-02 |
Less than 3 bandwidth authorities are available.
tor-relays |
|
| 2018-02-24 | China |
Blocking in China intensifies following the announcement of proposed changes to remove presidential term limits.
article |
| 2018-02-12 | Relays |
Tor 0.3.3.2-alpha reaches deb.torproject.org repositories
|
| 2018-02-11 | Relays |
Tor 0.3.3.2-alpha reaches FreeBSD repositories
|
| 2018-02-10 | Relays |
Tor 0.3.3.2-alpha is released (containing important denial-of-service migitations for relays)
blog |
| 2018-02-08 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "February 7 2018 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest FF83AD73DE7672C77EDF8888F4B241642C7C90F7, geoip6-db-digest B1CDBFEB7C88F82EF3B5289CAFEED1321FA4693F).
commit |
| 2018-02-01 to 2018-02-05 | Iran meek Unknown |
Drop of meek users in Iran; other transports not affected.
graph |
| 2018-01-24 to present | webstats |
Tor Browser update pings roughly halve, again. The beginning corresponds with the release of Tor Browser 7.5; however unlike with Tor Browser 6.5.2, there was no change to app.update.url this time.
ticket thread |
| 2018-01-23 | obfs4 |
Tor Browser 7.5 is released. It adds the default obfs4 bridge noisetor01:46089.
blog post |
| 2018-01-20 | Relays |
Some more directory authorities upgrade to 0.3.2.9 which enforces new requirements for the exit flag. ~50 relays lose the exit flag
tor-relays post |
| 2018-01-18 to 2018-02-24 | snowflake |
Outage of Snowflake broker caused by the disabling of the Let's Encrypt TLS-SNI-01 challenge.
ticket graph |
| 2018-01-16 |
Tor 0.3.2.9 reaches deb.torproject.org.
relay versions graph |
|
| 2018-01-08 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "January 5 2018 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest ACE2AF82816B9D3F58FC9C79A41B4506D6DAD713, geoip6-db-digest 387B3F555F1E054F0F9971C726F49848C5B5CF8B).
commit |
| 2018-01-05 to present |
Outage of the op-hk OnionPerf instance.
op-hk graph |
|
| 2018-01-01 | United Arab Emirates Relays |
User report that the UAE blocked Tor, bridges work.
comment |
| 2017-12-28 to 2018-01-13 | Iran |
Protests in Iran, blocking of various services including Tor. Instagram was unblocked 2018-01-06. Telegram was unblocked 2018-01-13.
Wikipedia OONI report relay graph bridge graph tweet Psiphon users |
| 2017-12-21 |
Release of tor 0.3.2.8-rc, intended to fix the KIST bug that enabled a DoS on relays by running them out of memory.
announcement ticket |
|
| 2017-12-20 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "December 6 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 1D486694A710145631B295CC39ECC5682F75858C, geoip6-db-digest F33231CAC761A71F7C19273DB1E11CEE01E2D982).
commit |
| 2017-12-16 to 2017-12-17 | Bridges Unknown |
Drop in the number of measured bridges.
graph mailing list post |
| 2017-12-12 to 2018-01-18 | meek |
Outage of the meek.bamsoftware.com (unthrottled for public use), meek.bamsoftware.com:7443 (former meek-azure, now unused), and gaeuploader.meek.bamsoftware.com (used by GAEuploader) bridges.
|
| 2017-12-12 to 2018-01-10 | France <OR> Relays Unknown |
Temporary tripling of relay users in France. Bridges not affected.
graph |
| 2017-12-10 to 2018-02-01 | Germany <OR> Relays Unknown |
Further, slow increase of relay users in Germany, from 500k to over 1.5M.
graph Reddit thread ticket |
| 2017-12-08 to 2017-12-11 | Bridges |
The bridge authority was down for unknown reasons.
graph mailing list post |
| 2017-12-05 to 2017-12-15 | Zimbabwe |
Internet outage in Zimbabwe.
article |
| 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 |
| 2017-10-01 to 2018-03-01 | Cameroon |
Internet shutdown in parts of Cameroon.
article article |
| 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 |
| 2017-03-01 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 |