Add to FAQ section "How many people use Tor? How many relays or exit nodes are there?"

All this and more about measuring Tor can be found at the Tor Metrics Portal.

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mentioned in issue #43 (closed)

PR #70

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Hey @gus can i work on this one?

Pull request for this is here. https://github.com/torproject/support/pull/169

https://github.com/torproject/support/pull/208 Worked on this, since last pull request wasn't merged and the numbers listed there were incorrect.

Hey @gus, I see this issue is still open, can I work on this?

@kulsoom.zahra, yes, but let me set some expectations about the answer we would like to have on support portal. The first question, we don't want just a number. We need to explain to users how it's a complex task to count how many users an anonymous network has and where they can find an approximation. After explaining, you can also point them to support.torproject.org/metrics

Second, regarding relays, it's important to note that the growth of a network is not linear, and sometimes you will see some drops. You find more information here: https://metrics.torproject.org/relayflags.html In this answer, we want to invite people to run more relays, and point them to the Tor relay section on Community portal: https://community.torproject.org/relay/ and relay operators Common questions: https://support.torproject.org/operators/ And to support Relay Associations: https://community.torproject.org/relay/community-resources/relay-associations/

How many people use Tor? We actually don't count users, it’s not possible to count the exact no.of users over an anonymous network and might put our users at risk. So, we get an approximation of the number of users by analyzing the requests induced by clients to relays and bridges, then estimate user numbers indirectly from there. Read more

Also, you can check the Tor Metrics website that provides easy access to visualizations of statistics over a requested time period and filtered to a particular country.

How many relays or exit nodes are there? Tor relays collect aggregated statistics about their usage including bandwidth and connecting clients per country. But, the growth of a network can NOT be linear so sometimes drops are seen . Read more

The Tor network relies on volunteers to donate bandwidth. The more people who run relays, the better the Tor network will be. So, we need more dedicated volunteers like you to run relays. Read more about relays , FAQs and our Relay Associations.

However for exit nodes, a value is derived from a relay's consensus weight that resembles the probability of selecting that relay as exit node.

@gus, Please review and let me know what you think.

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assigned to @gus

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unassigned @gus

closed