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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 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 see these questions and answers about user statistics.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-11-15 | <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 Nethernlands, 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.
Atlas 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 |
| 2017-05-25 | obfs4 |
Set AssumeReachable 1 on the default obfs4 bridges cymrubridge31 and cymrubridge33 in an attempt to make them publish statistics.
mailing list post |
| 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.
|
| 2017-05-16 | Ukraine |
Ukraine blocks Russian-operated web services. Relay and bridge users increase over 5×. May be partly attributable to the FreeU Browser , a browser produced and advertised by Mail.ru that includes a tor client.
ticket news article Reddit post relay graph bridge graph news article on FreeU |
| 2017-05-10 | Egypt <OR> Relays Unknown |
Drop in direct users from Egypt.
tor-talk post graph |
| 2017-05-09 to 2017-05-12 | Macau <OR> Relays Unknown |
Sudden temporary peak of 3k direct users in Macau.
tor-talk post graph |
| 2017-05-08 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "May 2 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest B2E5105287668771E34A66F90B34982D419727EF, geoip6-db-digest 8DA8AC3C8158CBFDF7DB53BBF73338246872371A).
commit |
| 2017-05-06 | snowflake |
Set AssumeReachable 1 on the Snowflake bridge 2B280B23E1107BB62ABFC40DDCC8824814F80A72 in an attempt to make it start publishing statistics.
mailing list post |
| 2017-04-30 | meek |
The meek-amazon bridge upgrades to meek-server 0.27.
|
| 2017-04-23 | Taiwan <OR> Relays Unknown |
Relay users triple and begin to fluctuate in Taiwan.
tor-talk post graph |
| 2017-04-20 | meek obfs4 scramblesuit |
Tor Browser 7.0a3 is released. It changes the app.update.url. It removes the last remaining scramblesuit bridge. It changes the meek-amazon backend. It adds the new default obfs4 bridges cymrubridge31:80 and cymrubridge33:80.
blog post |
| 2017-04-19 | meek obfs4 |
Tor Browser 6.5.2 is released. It changes the app.update.url. It changes the meek-amazon backend. It adds the new default obfs4 bridges cymrubridge31:80 and cymrubridge33:80.
blog post comment about app.update.url |
| 2017-04-17 to 2017-04-23 | Israel <OR> Relays Unknown |
Another sudden increase of direct users in Israel. Bridge users not affected.
relay graph |
| 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 |
| 2017-04-06 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "April 4 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 0F3D4A456E5078CC9E49398ADCB04C40EA49B793, geoip6-db-digest 04F41F05FA167EF6EEE3FE953404AB0BCCD33008).
commit |
| 2017-04-05 to 2017-04-13 | Israel <OR> Relays Unknown |
Sudden increase of direct users in Israel. Bridge users not affected.
relay graph |
| 2017-03-22 | meek |
Orbot 15.4.0 beta-2 multi is released, containing the new meek-azure CDN configuration.
mailing list post commit |
| 2017-03-08 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "March 7 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 63921843E3AAA632088D189D877F836A373CD40D, geoip6-db-digest 2B93B9C6679BB09E1746F212A6DCDC6E710F5F52).
commit |
| 2017-03-07 | meek scramblesuit |
Tor Browser 6.5.1 is released, containing the new meek-azure CDN configuration, and removing the last remaining scramblesuit bridge.
blog post meek ticket scramblesuit ticket |
| 2017-03-03 | meek |
Stopped the (unused) meek-azure CDN endpoint meek-reflect.azureedge.net.
mailing list post |
| 2017-03-03 | meek |
Stopped the meek-azure CDN endpoint az786092.vo.msecnd.net.
mailing list post |
| 2017-03-03 | meek |
Stopped the meek-azure CDN endpoint az668014.vo.msecnd.net.
mailing list post |
| 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 |
| 2017-02-12 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "February 8 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest C0C6099CE335916862978F77756C0B42521A74B2, geoip6-db-digest A54B14B9D47584E010F763D3EAE23C4726F4A8D5).
commit |
| 2017-02-10 to present | <OR> exit |
Measurement error from bandwidth authority causes decrease in measured bandwidth in Europe.
mailing list post |
| 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 |
| 2017-02-09 to 2017-03-21 | Jordan obfs3 Unknown |
Abrupt increase and decrease in obfs3 users in Jordan. 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 |
| 2017-01-25 to 2017-04-05 | webstats |
Tor Browser update pings roughly halve. The beginning corresponds with the release of Tor Browser 6.5.2, which changed the app.update.url. The end doesn't correspond to any release.
ticket |
| 2017-01-24 |
Tor Browser 6.5 is released. It changes the app.update.url, which causes an apparent drop in update pings.
blog post graph ticket comment about app.update.url |
|
| 2017-01-24 | snowflake |
Tor Browser 7.0a1 released, including Snowflake for GNU/Linux only.
blog post |
| 2017-01-22 | meek |
1.0-beta release of GAEuploader, a tool that automates the setting up of meek.
mailing list post |
| 2017-01-16 to 2017-04-20 | Cameroon |
Internet shutdown in parts of Cameroon.
article article |
| 2017-01-15 to 2017-03-01 | United Arab Emirates <OR> Relays Unknown |
Huge spike in relay users (400k+). An anonymous contributor suggests that it may be a botnet, based on the large number of hosts with an open SMB port in the UAE.
graph metrics-team thread Reddit thread comment about botnet |
| 2017-01-09 | meek |
Decreased the rate limit on the meek-azure bridge to 2.0 MB/s, from 3.0 MB/s.
|
| 2017-01-04 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "January 4 2017 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 672C29A4FA9BF81DE97CFE128741445E2BDE8097, geoip6-db-digest 81F380639A8E1000539204949A363FD3BFAFBA74).
commit |
| 2016-12-21 to 2016-12-28 | <OR> Relays Unknown |
Drop in relay users.
metrics-team thread thread continues |
| 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 |
| 2016-12-13 | obfs4 |
Tor Browser 6.5a6 is released. It fixes the app.update.url. It adds (uncomments) the default obfs4 bridge NX01:443. It activates timing obfuscation for certain obfs4 bridges. It changes the port of other obfs4 bridges.
blog post |
| 2016-12-12 | Turkey <OR> |
Turkey blocks direct Tor connections. The order to block had come on 2016-11-04.
ticket tweet article |
| 2016-12-09 | ipv4 ipv6 |
geoip and geoip6 databases updated to "December 7 2016 Maxmind GeoLite2 Country" (geoip-db-digest 1317BB3525E85E01FB34A89E04CE549AC23D07BD, geoip6-db-digest 865048C69BEC02B37268BFBAD66D9729B21CFCF5).
commit |
| 2016-12-01 | Belarus <OR> Relays |
Belarus blocks the addresses of public Tor relays, apparently by RST injection. Bridges work, even unobfuscated ones.
ticket article (Russian) OONI blog post |
| 2016-11-30 to 2016-12-02 | Gambia |
Internet shutdown in Gambia.
relay graph OONI report Cloudflare blog post |
| 2016-11-20 to 2016-12-22 | Saudi Arabia Bridges Unknown |
Decrease in direct users and increase in bridge users in Saudi Arabia. The increase in bridge users lasts only about one month while the number of direct users remains down.
ticket |
| 2016-09-23 to 2016-11-28 | obfs3 |
Outage of default obfs3 bridges "Unnamed" and "Unnamed" (fingerprint AF9F66B7B04F8FF6F32D455F05135250A16543C9). (Start date not known for sure, though it must have been after 2016-09-23; discussed in non-archived tor-team email.)
|
| 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 |
| 2015-12-31 to 2020-06-04 | Mexico |
The Telmex ISP in Mexico blocks seven directory authorities.
mailing list post article |