We estimate the number of users by analyzing the requests induced by clients to relays and bridges.
This graph shows the estimated number of directly-connecting clients; that is, it excludes clients connecting via bridges. These estimates are derived from the number of directory requests counted on directory authorities and mirrors. Relays resolve client IP addresses to country codes, so that graphs are available for most countries. Furthermore, it is possible to display indications of censorship events as obtained from an anomaly-based censorship-detection system (for more details, see this technical report). 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 |
---|---|---|
2015-03-09 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "March 3 2015 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest C1EB5237F2FBAF63381D8551157F13D12EFCCA25 ).
commit |
2015-03-09 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "March 3 2015 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 1F99B6B0EC78E9DB34D61AE7E0FC261D558E8E5D ).
commit |
2015-02-28 | meek |
Altered performance settings on the meek-google App Engine instance in an effort to reduce instance hours. Set max idle instances to 4 and min pending latency to 500 ms.
|
2015-02-14 | meek |
Release of Orbot v15-alpha-3, first release with meek.
mailing list post |
2015-01-22 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "January 7 2015 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 49D309B9663C4EFB8D126D84BBB373D7C84658C3 ).
commit |
2015-01-22 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "January 7 2015 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 9B26276EA470137894566882885AD82701D38D62 ).
commit |
2014-11-24 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "November 15 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest DC1A94D962AE165EF4AA1F14857A23C34875F39D ).
commit |
2014-11-24 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "November 15 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 923BA7ED922B2A4B30C9B76EE7E72D1D1714BFAF ).
commit |
2014-11-17 | obfs4 |
Release of Tor Browser 4.5-alpha-1, first alpha release with obfs4. (Tor Browser changelog says 2014-11-14.)
blog post |
2014-11-15 | meek |
Moved the meek-google bridge to better hardware.
|
2014-11-08 | meek |
Changed the meek-google App Engine instance back to the F1 class, from F2.
|
2014-10-31 | meek |
Changed the meek-google App Engine instance to the F2 class again, from F1.
|
2014-10-27 | meek |
Changed the meek-google App Engine instance back to the F1 class, from F2.
|
2014-10-25 | meek |
Changed the bridge backing meek-google.
|
2014-10-25 | meek |
Changed the meek-google App Engine instance to the F2 class, from F1.
|
2014-10-15 | meek scramblesuit |
Tor Browser 4.0 released. This is the first stable release with meek and ScrambleSuit built in.
blog post |
2014-10-14 | meek |
Enabled PublishServerDescriptor on the meek-amazon bridge. Between 2014-09-29 and 2014-10-14, meek-amazon users were not being counted.
mailing list post |
2014-09-29 | meek |
Changed the bridge backing meek-amazon.
|
2014-09-29 | China |
China blocks Instagram in response to ongoing protests in Hong Kong. A research paper by Hobbs and Roberts shows evidence for an increase in circumvention, but the measurable effect on Tor is slight if anything.
relay graph bridge graph BBC article research paper |
2014-09-26 to 2014-12-15 | Hong Kong |
"Umbrella Revolution" protests in Hong Kong.
relay graph bridge graph |
2014-09-16 | meek |
Switched meek-amazon to HTTPS.
ticket |
2014-09-15 | flashproxy meek |
Split the bridge running meek and flashproxy into separate processes in order to avoid spurious correlation in user counts.
mailing list post |
2014-08-29 to 2014-09-01 | fte |
Decrease in fte users, perhaps caused by an outage of one of the default Tor Browser bridges.
mailing list post |
2014-08-15 | meek |
'How to use the “meek” pluggable transport' blog post is published.
blog post |
2014-08-13 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "August 7 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 9EF0A1874377BFB6413ED3F9EB5504B1DB17BE13 ).
commit |
2014-08-13 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "August 7 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 542D349827A88738A04332DAFF2516A384BCC8FF ).
commit |
2014-08-12 |
Tor Browser 3.6.4 released.
blog post |
|
2014-08-12 | meek scramblesuit |
Tor Browser 4.0-alpha-1 released. This is the first release to have meek and ScrambleSuit built in.
blog post |
2014-07-28 | meek |
Set up meek-amazon CDN configuration.
|
2014-07-27 to 2014-09-23 | Iran |
Iran blocks Tor directory authorities.
ticket |
2014-07-18 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "July 10 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest F2E34A314F2101E3F5AE0774660C4BA670646B8D ).
commit |
2014-07-18 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "July 10 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 45893A1BDDABACCEB346DE4644A155450FD28B0E ).
commit |
2014-06-10 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "June 4 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest BFC7453BBEAD611B7FF97AD71BE3392AA8BCFBE3 ).
commit |
2014-06-10 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "June 4 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest E0A79ABC85672AACD47878029C2C383D4C669335 ).
commit |
2014-06-01 to 2014-06-19 | Russia <OR> Relays Unknown |
Rapid increase of relay users in Russia, going from 80K to 200K before settling in around 150K.
|
2014-05-08 | flashproxy meek |
Reinstalled the bridge running meek and flash proxy.
|
2014-04-29 | flashproxy fte obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of Tor Browser 3.6, the first stable release with integrated pluggable transports.
blog post transport graph |
2014-04-11 |
Release of Tor Browser 3.6-beta-2.
blog post |
|
2014-03-18 | flashproxy fte obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of Tor Browser 3.6-beta-1, the first release with integrated pluggable transports.
blog post |
2014-02-25 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "February 7 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 182195DB4DA9A979A829012F71CF128FAF1203F7 ).
commit |
2014-02-15 | flashproxy meek |
Began running meek-server on bridge already hosting websocket-server for flash proxy.
|
2014-02-13 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "February 7 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip6-db-digest FB95DF46D6B29167668F4D2CAC9F947C4B2A0C26 ).
commit |
2014-02-08 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "February 7 2014 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest FA903A1122A248E107A1C17A5AC50A5852F03966 ).
commit |
2014-01-31 | meek |
First public announcement of meek.
mailing list post |
2013-12-04 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.18-rc-1-pt1 and 2.4.18-rc-2-pt1.
blog post |
2013-11-11 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.17-rc-1-pt2.
blog post |
2013-11-04 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.17-rc-1-pt1.
blog post |
2013-11-03 | <OR> Relays |
Microsoft adds the Mevade/Sefnit botnet signature to their Malicious Software Removal Tool.
blog post |
2013-10-27 | <OR> Relays |
Microsoft adds the Mevade/Sefnit botnet signature to various security scanners.
blog post |
2013-10-11 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "October 2 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest A28267CED18A1D80B4298796E9FE42EC755420C0 ).
commit |
2013-09-23 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.17-beta-2-pt3.
blog post |
2013-09-10 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "September 4 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest CB632F60547F141E06FB0705D1F171047165722E ).
commit |
2013-08-19 to 2014-04-28 | <OR> Relays |
Relay users increase globally from about 800K to over 5M, when computers in the Mevade/Sefnit botnet began using Tor to communicate. The user count decreased in the following months through efforts to clean up the botnet. Sometime in 2014-04, the botnet switched from using Tor to using SSH.
blog post tech report analysis switch to SSH |
2013-08-12 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "August 7 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 83CCB5AF823A5CCF3C86C3CA33AF801D4E8996EC ).
commit |
2013-08-10 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.15-beta-2-pt1.
blog post |
2013-07-08 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "July 3 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 4D558EA73DD91A0361DE3FA3E83171DCD38D1A2D ).
commit |
2013-06-05 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "June 5 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 5E570BB92DBEE1D517E35DAA4A52F58FDA6BB44E ).
commit |
2013-06-02 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.12-alpha-2-pt1.
blog post |
2013-05-13 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "May 9 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 2ADCA1913666A685B141C03E7B2F50B3DB84FDC9 ).
commit |
2013-04-08 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "April 3 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 7DDD315EBCDC2A8BCA47A8B5153EB697947AC851 ).
commit |
2013-03-19 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 0.2.4.11-alpha-2.
blog post |
2013-03-07 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "March 6 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest CB30D739CF972BEE0EF0635838A2AD76E2171004 ).
commit |
2013-02-08 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated (geoip-db-digest 29DF86915FF87E2FBE12F3514776B7292B556CCD ).
commit |
2013-01-13 | flashproxy obfs2 obfs3 |
Release of the pluggable transports browser bundle 2.4.7-alpha-1, containing flash proxy, obfs2, and obfs3 built in and enabled by default.
blog post ticket |
2013-01-05 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "January 2 2013 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest DBBBA6D1F6CD90E860DDD42C90A21CF8A1B8395F ).
commit |
2012-12-13 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "December 5 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest E00C7CD522D9ED6BEF69C6A904DCE51EC54EB768 ).
commit |
2012-12-06 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "December 5 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 5A258599E3F768D0CEFBBD26F1D039760D43BB15 ).
commit |
2012-11-28 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "November 7 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 0D1734EB51EC9168C6428CD771945567B927F45C ).
commit |
2012-10-16 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "October 16 2012 Maxmind GeoLite IPv6 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 7F82A502C248B0CFBCCF6FE370919E34E04A21FA ).
commit |
2012-07-06 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "May 1 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 207A8167FC83230884A7B463B8EE12385CF1874F ).
commit |
2012-06-15 | <OR> |
Release of tor 0.2.3.17-beta. Changes the TLS ciphersuite list to match that of Firefox 8, to evade blocking by China.
ticket censorshipwiki entry |
2012-06-13 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "June 6 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest B7DC8C42403B1E0B50C671587DE406AED8DC5831 ).
commit |
2012-05-15 to 2012-12-15 | Ethiopia <OR> |
Ethiopia blocks Tor TLS.
ticket blog post 1 blog post 2 sample packets tor patches |
2012-05-07 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "May 1 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 207A8167FC83230884A7B463B8EE12385CF1874F ).
commit |
2012-04-12 | obfs2 |
Release of "Tor Obfsproxy Browser Bundle" 2.3.12-4.
package archive commit |
2012-04-11 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "April 3 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest A27BE984989AB31C50D0861C7106B17A7EEC3756 ).
commit |
2012-03-28 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "February 22 2012 Maxmind GeoLite IPv6 Country" (geoip6-db-digest 2B442C5D9781145C0172ECC250DF71E25F0A957E ).
commit |
2012-03-08 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "March 6 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 51EA5ED511A11D31FB4DAFCEC05B5347F6462B56 ).
commit |
2012-03-01 to 2013-08-19 | Kazakhstan <OR> |
Kazakhstan blocks Tor TLS by ClientHello and ServerHello fingerprints.
ticket tor patches |
2012-03-01 | ipv6 |
geoip6 database updated to "February 22 2012 Maxmind GeoLite IPv6 Country" (geoip6-db-digest E39E1056F219DDF6E1C12F27CC50963D0F9774ED ).
commit |
2012-02-22 | obfs2 |
Release of "Tor Obfsproxy Browser Bundle" 2.3.12-3, for Windows and Linux only.
package archive commits |
2012-02-18 | obfs2 |
Release of "Tor Obfsproxy Browser Bundle" 2.3.12-2, for Windows and Mac OS X only.
package archive commit |
2012-02-13 | obfs2 |
Release of "Tor Obfsproxy Browser Bundle" 2.3.12, containing 13 obfs2 bridges (removed 128.30.30.25:51420 relative to version 2.3.10).
blog post package archive commits |
2012-02-11 | obfs2 |
First release of "Tor Obfsproxy Browser Bundle", containing 2 obfs2 bridges. Version number unknown; no bundle containing 2 bridges exists at https://archive.torproject.org/tor-package-archive/obfsproxy/.
blog post |
2012-02-11 | obfs2 |
Release of "Tor Obfsproxy Browser Bundle" 2.3.10, containing 14 obfs2 bridges.
blog post package archive commits |
2012-02-09 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "February 7 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 3BCA888461BCC79CA29E78603DC197090F8C96CB ).
commit |
2012-02-08 to 2012-02-11 | Iran <OR> |
Iran partially blocks Tor.
blog post relay graph bridge graph |
2012-01-05 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "January 3 2012 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest DCF8969A2B080FAE2664F1D46F758B1CB08C286C ).
commit |
2011-12-08 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "December 6 2011 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 916A3CA8B7DF61473D5AE5B21711F35F301CE9E8 ).
commit |
2011-11-07 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "November 1 2011 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest F730E870057D6CA19EE55BC80604E41BEEB5B607 ).
commit |
2011-10-13 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "October 4 2011 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest 25138998CF10DDAC1B4F745EBC6790DA4E5A6F1B ).
commit |
2011-09-13 | <OR> |
Release of tor 0.2.3.4-alpha. Changes the expiration time of TLS certificates, to evade blocking in Iran.
ticket censorshipwiki entry |
2011-09-12 | ipv4 |
geoip database updated to "September 6 2011 Maxmind GeoLite Country" (geoip-db-digest F39A5F424559CF5654C793531982BA536D1CEDCA ).
commit |
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