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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-05-25 | 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.
|
| 2017-05-08 | 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.
|
| 2017-04-20 | 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 |
| 2017-04-14 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 |
| 2017-03-22 | 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 |
| 2017-02-06 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 |
| 2017-01-15 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 |