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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2021-05-17 to 2021-06-05 |
Experiment to test the accuracy of relays' advertised bandwidth estimation.
status.torproject.org post announcing start post announcing end advertised bandwidth graph relay flags graph |
|
| 2021-05-14 to 2021-05-18 | meek Unknown |
The number of meek users temporarily drops to < 10.
graph |
| 2021-05-12 to 2021-06-21 | snowflake |
Error in stats collection at the Snowflake bridge; user count is erroneously zero.
merge request comment on start comment on end user count graph |
| 2021-05-07 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "IPFire Project Fri, 07 May 2021 05:18:14 GMT" (geoip-db-digest AE864EA783E3776E4950859B5B35F412977F876F, geoip6-db-digest 7008D77E958D919E432AAE7F5C2002B14604FFFE).
commit |
| 2021-05-05 | Turkmenistan meek Unknown |
Drop in meek users in Turkmenistan, from over 200 to almost zero.
bridge user and transport graph |
| 2021-05-03 | snowflake |
Outage of snowflake bridge.
comment |
| 2021-04-01 to present | Myanmar |
Shutdowns of wireless broadband in Myanmar.
Access Now post |
| 2021-02-15 to 2021-04-27 | Myanmar |
Nightly shutdowns of fixed-line Internet in Myanmar.
relay graph bridge graph OONI report IODA for start IODA for end Access Now post censorship-analysis issue |
| 2021-01-01 to present | China snowflake Unknown |
Increased failure to bootstrap using Snowflake from China.
comment |
| 2020-10-27 to present | Tanzania, United Republic of <OR> obfs4 |
Blocking of Tor and default obfs4 bridges during elections in Tanzania.
OONI report |
| 2019-06-21 to present | Myanmar |
Internet shutdown in parts of Myanmar.
report 2020 report |
| 2019-04-27 to present | Russia Relays Unknown |
Relay users increase by about 100K, in an apparent weekly cycle. Bridge users are not similarly affected.
relay graph bridge graph tor-talk thread Reddit thread |
| 2019-04-23 to present | Sri Lanka |
Sri Lanka blocks Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube after bombings.
relay graph bridge graph article |
| 2019-02-16 to present | Belarus Relays Unknown |
Increase of relay users in Belarus.
graph mailing list post |
| 2018-12-20 to present | Sudan |
Protests and social media blocks in Sudan.
relay graph Access Now post Psiphon users |
| 2018-09-26 to present | fte |
Outage of default FTE bridge 128.105.214.162:8080.
comment |
| 2018-09-26 to present | fte |
Outage of default FTE bridge 128.105.214.163:8080.
comment |
| 2018-07-28 to present | Turkey Relays Unknown |
Another jump of relay users in Turkey, from 5k to about 30k.
relay graph bridge graph |
| 2018-07-01 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 |
| 2018-06-20 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 |
| 2018-04-30 to present | Iran |
Iranian ISPs block Telegram.
ticket article relay graph bridge graph Psiphon users |
| 2018-03-28 to present | Chad |
Chad blocks social messaging apps.
article 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 |
| 2018-01-05 to present |
Outage of the op-hk OnionPerf instance.
op-hk graph |
|
| 2017-12-04 to present |
DDoS attack creates load on the network.
tor-relays thread relay graph summary post ticket |
|
| 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 |
| 2017-02-10 to present | <OR> exit |
Measurement error from bandwidth authority causes decrease in measured bandwidth in Europe.
mailing list post |
| 2016-12-15 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 |
| 2016-11-03 to present | Turkey |
Turkey blocks Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp.
article |
| 2016-10-25 to present | Egypt <OR> Relays |
Egypt blocks Tor directory authorities and public relays by TCP RST. Bridges work.
OONI report |
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This material is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CNS-0959138. Any opinions, finding, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. "Tor" and the "Onion Logo" are registered trademarks of The Tor Project, Inc.. Data on this site is freely available under a CC0 no copyright declaration: To the extent possible under law, the Tor Project has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights in the data. Graphs are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.