intrigerititle: OpenPGP and Pidgin survey- GitLab issue: tails#17821 (closed)
- Advertised on Home from 2020-07-18 to 2020-08-13
- 924 full responses, 851 valid responses
- Conversion rate 2.2%
Research questions and results
OpenPGP support outside of Thunderbird (tails#8310, tails#17183, tails#17169 (closed))
This will become an even hotter topic once Enigmail goes away in a few months: Thunderbird will maintain its own keyring, independently from GnuPG's ⇒ Seahorse will stop being useful for anything related to email, so the cost/benefit of vaguely supporting it will become even higher.
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How popular is OpenPGP inside and outside Thunderbird?
OpenPGP is much more popular outside Thunderbird than inside Thunderbird:
- 16% of our users use OpenPGP inside Thunderbird.
- 49% of our users use OpenPGP outside Thunderbird.
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How technical are the people using OpenPGP outside Thunderbird?
People using OpenPGP outside Thunderbird are slightly less technical that people using OpenPGP inside Thunderbird:
- Enigmail users use mostly Linux significantly more than non-Enigmail users: 62% vs. 50%.
- Enigmail users use the command line slightly more than non-Enigmail users: 62% vs. 56%.
- The most popular OpenPGP tools are Nautilus (41%), Seahorse (37%), and the applet (34%).
- OpenPGP users use mostly Linux slightly more than our users in general: 54% vs. 49%.
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Could these people use Thunderbird instead?
No.
- 33% of our users use OpenPGP only outside Thunderbird.
- 15% of our users use OpenPGP mostly to communicate using a website.
- 16% of our users use OpenPGP mostly to communicate by email, which is the same fraction as the number of Enigmail users.
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Who will suffer from the Thunderbird migration because they use OpenPGP both inside and outside Thunderbird?
Almost all our Enigmail users:
- 1% of our users only use OpenPGP inside Thunderbird.
- 16% of our users use OpenPGP both inside and outside Thunderbird.
- 55% of Enigmail users use OpenPGP mostly to communicate by email.
- 16% of Enigmail users use OpenPGP mostly to communicate using a website.
Can we stop including an IRC client by default? (tails#15816 (closed))
This open question has been the main blocker for replacing Pidgin for years.
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What would be the cost of removing the support for IRC by default in Tails?
The cost would be way less than breaking Electrum or Seahorse:
- 8% of our users use IRC in Pidgin.
- 28% of our users use Electrum.
- 37% of our users use Seahorse.
We should provide an alternative, otherwise the noise might be similar to dropping 32-bit computers (4%), though the concrete impact is very different for people. IRC users are also use Electrum much more than our users in general: 51% vs. 28%.
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How technical are the people using IRC in Tails?
IRC users are much more technical than our users in general:
- IRC users use mostly Linux significantly more than our users in general: 63% vs. 49%.
- IRC users use OpenPGP a lot more than our users in general: 91% vs. 50%.
- IRC users use the command line a lot more than our OpenPGP users in general: 91% vs. 58%.
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Are people using IRC in Tails to connect to servers that do not block Tor?
The most popular IRC servers are:
- Freenode: 52%
- Private IRC servers: 43%
- IRCnet: 34%
- OFTC: 10%
- EFnet: 10%
- Undernet: 7%
I didn't check how much these servers block Tor.
- The Tor project has a list of IRC/chat networks that block or support Tor
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How popular is XMPP among our users?
A little bit more than Enigmail:
- 16% of our users use Enigmail.
- 17% of our users use XMPP in Pidgin.
- 58% of our Pidgin users use only XMPP.
- 92% of our Pidgin users use XMPP and IRC.
General purpose questions
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How technical is our current user base and how easy is it for them to use Tails?
Linux users are still the biggest share of our user base, which hasn't changed much since 2017.
OS Windows 45% macOS 7% Linux 49% Our current user base finds Tails relatively easy to use.
Tails scored 5.9 on the Single Ease Question among respondents. A reference average for this Single Ease Question is 5.5, so we're doing pretty good!
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Which applications are used the most in Tails?
Fraction of users that reported using a given application (at least sometimes).
Application Total Tor Browser 100% OpenPGP 50% Electrum 28% Thunderbird 27% OnionShare 27% Pidgin 19% -
What are the top requests of our current user base?
The top 5 priorities of our users are, in rough order:
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The single most frequent comment is to do nothing because Tails is great already :)
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More persistent settings
- Security level and NoScript settings in Tor Browser
- Background
- Keyboard and language
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Messaging applications and voice calls
Signal was the most mentioned as it also allows voice calls.
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Tor is painful for web browsing
People complain about websites blocking Tor and captchas. I bet that's why people ask so much for VPN and use the Unsafe Browser whenever Tor Browser doesn't work.
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Better upgrades
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Methodology
Prompt
Questions
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Overall, how difficult or easy is it for you to use Tails? (
*)7-point scale from Very Difficult to Very Easy
OS Average All 5.9 Windows 5.8 macOS 5.9 Linux 6.0 -
If you could change just one thing in Tails, what would it be?
Short text:
I coded the answer and extracted the themes that were mentioned more than once.
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More persistent settings (57)
16 Persist Tor Browser preferences (security level, NoScript, etc.) 15 Persist background 11 Persist keyboard and language 9 Persist more settings 4 Persist Tor settings 2 Easier Persistent Storage -
Nothing (53)
53 Nothing -
Messaging applications and voice calls (38)
11 Messaging 10 Voice calls (including Signal for voice calls) 7 Signal 7 Omemo 3 Telegram -
Tor is painful for web browsing (39)
19 VPN 6 Faster Tor 5 Websites blocking Tor 4 Download from Unsafe Browser 3 Sound in Unsafe Browser 2 Private Unsafe Browser -
Better upgrades (25)
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Improvements to Tor Browser (22)
10 Safest by default (overlaps with persisting preferences) 4 NoScript in taskbar 3 Prevent maximizing Tor Browser 3 Full browser screenshot 2 Remove letterboxing -
Network connection (21)
10 Bridges (easier, more reliable, and by default) 7 Better circuit view or control 4 Network connection -
More cryptocurrencies (18)
16 Monero 2 Other cryptos -
Additional Software (16)
11 Additional Software (easier, persist config, more choice, etc.) 5 Package manager -
Application launching (7)
3 Favorites (different or custom) 2 Better Applications menu 2 Launchers on the desktop -
More tools
6 Video editing 4 Better media player 3 More tools in general 3 Video download 2 Scribus 2 MAT GUI 2 GPT-3 2 BitTorrent 2 Ability to play CDs -
Tech trolling
17 Replace GNOME 4 Whonix design with VMs 3 Spoof entire MAC 2 Replace systemd -
Hardware support
5 Wi-Fi support 3 Booting is hard 2 Mac hardware 2 Mobile 2 Tablet -
Misc
13 VeraCrypt (creation of volumes) 10 Disk install 9 More documentation 8 OpenPGP 7 toram 5 Dark theme 4 Freeze 4 Faster boot 3 Windows camouflage 3 Smaller OS 3 Clock display 3 Backups 2 U2F keys 2 Confirm before shutdown 2 Disable camera and microphone 2 Change entry guard
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How often, if at all, do you use the following tools in Tails? (
*)Application Sometimes Most of the time Total Tor Browser 3% 97% 100% OpenPGP 24% 26% 50% Electrum 16% 12% 28% Thunderbird 17% 10% 27% OnionShare 22% 5% 27% Pidgin 13% 6% 19% -
Other than Tails, which of the following operating systems do you use the most?
OS Windows 45% macOS 7% Linux 49% These results are very similar to the one from the VeraCrypt surveys. The question was asked differently so I don't think that we can compare them in details.
Conditional questions on OpenPGP
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How often, if at all, do you use the following tools for OpenPGP in Tails? (
*)Randomized array
| Never | Sometimes | Most of the time | Don't know | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The gpg command line utilities-terminal.png
|
20% | 19% | 10% | 2% |
| Enigmail in Thunderbird thunderbird.png | 32% | 10% | 6% | 1% |
| The OpenPGP applet in the top bar gpgapplet with text.png | 14% | 15% | 20% | 1% |
| The Passwords and Keys utility seahorse.png | 12% | 19% | 18% | 1% |
| The Files browser files.png | 8% | 15% | 25% | 1% |
| The Archive manager file-roller.png | 22% | 17% | 8% | 3% |
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Which other tool, if any, do you use for OpenPGP in Tails?
Short text
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Which of the following options describe the best what you use OpenPGP for?
Single choice
- Exchanging encrypted messages or files by email
- Exchanging encrypted messages or files using a website
- Exchanging encrypted messages or files using an external device
- Encrypting text or files for myself
- Other:
Conditional questions on Pidgin
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How often, if at all, do you use Pidgin in Tails to connect to XMPP (also called Jabber) servers?
To see if your accounts use XMPP/Jabber, choose Accounts → Manage Accounts in Pidgin.
Single choice
- Never: 8%
- Sometimes: 57%
- Most of the time: 35%
- Don't know: 1%
- No answer
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How often, if at all, do you use Pidgin in Tails to connect to IRC servers?
To see if your accounts use IRC, choose Accounts → Manage Accounts in Pidgin.
Single choice
- Never: 54%
- Sometimes: 34%
- Most of the time: 9%
- Don't know: 4%
- No answer
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How often, if at all, do you use private conversations (also called OTR) in Pidgin in Tails?
Single choice
- Never
- Sometimes
- Most of the time
- Don't know
- No answer
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Which IRC servers, if any, do you connect to using Pidgin in Tails?
Randomize multiple choice
- Private IRC servers: 43%
- Freenode: 52%
- IRCnet: 34%
- Undernet: 7%
- OFTC: 10%
- EFnet: 10%
- Leetnet:
- Other:
Conditional questions on OpenPGP or Pidgin
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We might be interested in asking you a few more questions to understand better how you use OpenPGP or Pidgin in Tails. If you feel like it, you can share your email address with us. We will only use it to contact you as part of this research and delete it afterwards.
Short text