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Is It Time To Ditch Google Analytics? (fastcompany.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the seriously-do-not-track dept.

"In the last year, a swell of privacy-focused website analytics platforms have started to provide an alternative to Google's tracking behemoth," reports Fast Company.

An anonymous reader shares their article about startups providing "privacy-centric analytics, claiming not to collect any personal data and only display simple metrics like page views, referral websites, and screen sizes in clean, pared-down interfaces."

While Simple Analytics and Fathom are both recent additions to the world of privacy-focused data analytics, 1.5% of the internet already uses an open-source, decentralized platform called Matomo, according to the company... "When [Google] released Google Analytics, [it] was obvious to me that a certain percent of the world would want the same technology, but decentralized, where it's not provided by a centralized corporation and you're not dependent on them," says Matthieu Aubry, Matomo's founder. "If you use it on your own server, it's impossible for us to get any data from it."

Aubry says that 99% of Matomo users use the analytics code, which is open for anyone to use, and host their analytics on their own servers -- which means that the company has no access to it whatsoever. For Aubry, that's his way of ensuring privacy by design. United Nations, Amnesty International, NASA, and the European Commission and about 1.5 million other websites use Matomo. But Matomo also offers significantly more robust tracking than Fathom or Simple Analytics -- Aubry says it can do about 95% of what Google Analytics does. Still, there are a few key differences. Like Simple Analytics, Matomo honors Do Not Track....

The rise of these analytics startups speaks to a growing desire for alternatives to the corporate ecosystems controlled by giants like Google, Amazon, and Apple, a swell that has helped privacy-focused search engine Duck Duck Go reach 36 million searches in a day. There's even an entire website dedicated to alternates to all of Google's services. For Aubry of Matomo, this concentration of power in the hands (or servers) of billion-dollar companies is the reason to support smaller, decentralized networks like his own that share code. "We want to control our future technology -- be able to understand it, study it, see what it does beneath the hood," he says. "And when it doesn't work we can fix it ourselves."

96 comments

  1. Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Micro managing your web site will make you lose your unique voice and identity and turn into generic tripe. Not everything has to be 100% engaging to everyone, peripheral and niche content is important and contributes to the variety and health of the discussion surrounding it and the value that people find in being able to discover something new organically.

    1. Re: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Literally 93% of the web traffic comes from big companies like amazon etc. which tells you that most of the web analytics must also come from that web traffic. Is there a place for another analytics service? I have no clue. It is something to consider once the wars are over and we can re-examine what is out there, preferably in an orderly fashion somehow. Is it worth getting all concerned about immediately? I would say not at all.

    2. Re: Yes by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Just what's wrong with Webalizer?

      That gives in principle all you really need to know about the traffic to your web site. Outsourcing the statistics to someone that runs cookies is more or less just a waste of time considering all the cookie filters and other filters from people that don't want to be tracked.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Yes by sichbo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Around 2013 I came the same conclusion and removed GA from all of my websites. It's my opinion that there is no excuse for using cookies for any reason other than a single https-only one for the purpose of keeping people logged in. Server side IP address alone is accurate enough to gauge rough visitor behaviour patterns and the acquisition point (HTTP referrer) is the single only useful metric I personally pay attention to. Ergo, my "analytics" consists of a few lines of C# code which runs against a folder of daily nginx logs, filters out bots/referrer spam and produces a simple table of what's been going on. It's not rocket science.

      One nagging question I've always wondered is whether or not google internally demotes websites containing no tracker scripts, on a presumption that "its owner is not working to track visitors/revenue, therefor it is not a serious candidate for these search terms." Even though a product landing page is clean, simple, succinct, and the end product is well received by real users in actually. I'm curious whether or not it's why earlier projects of mine seemed to gather regular organic search traffic and associated business without me even lifting a finger, other than braindead obvious correct usage of search index friendly html markup throughout, contrast to post 2013, when I build a new software product, launch a site for people to find and download it, making sure it looks clean and presentable, mobile friendly, loads quickly, ticks all the best practice boxes - it might as well not even exist. Pretty much the only search term it's considered for is the product name itself through word of mouth.

    4. Re: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed.

      This became obvious to me when Google removed the ability to submit URLs to their spider.

    5. Re: Yes by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      considering all the cookie filters and other filters from people that don't want to be tracked.

      I think most people are just annoyed about having to click "confirm" on every single website.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:Yes by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Ergo, my "analytics" consists of a few lines of C# code which runs against a folder of daily nginx logs, filters out bots/referrer spam and produces a simple table of what's been going on. It's not rocket science.

      That's really good but it doesn't tell you things like age, gender, geo-location, and interests of your visitors. You might not care, of course.

      One nagging question I've always wondered is whether or not google internally demotes websites containing no tracker scripts, on a presumption that "its owner is not working to track visitors/revenue, therefor it is not a serious candidate for these search terms."

      Doesn't seem to. I only have one website to test this with, so the error bars are wide, but my answer is no.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    7. Re: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Only complaint I've had about webalizer is when looking for "what were people searching for when they found my site?". Google uses obfuscated URLs now for search results, so I've no idea if visitors came from a search page for "glass hamburgers" or "basketball hedgehogs." If I used Google Analytics, I would have access to that information. I'm certain that change was intentional.

    8. Re:Yes by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Google analytics was the first permanent entry on my noscript. The entire concept is antithetical to consumer privacy.

    9. Re: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Webalizer operates on server logs, so it helps you understand what's going on with your server, not your visitors. Simple example: you have a static web page with appropriate Cache-Control headers. A million people visit it in an hour. What will Webalizer tell you? An unpredictable number anywhere in the range 1–1,000,000 depending on the distribution of your visitors. If you're okay with undercounting your visitors by 10,000%, feel free to use Webalizer to measure your traffic.

      Note: Webalizer is a perfectly fine, non-broken tool. But it should be used for what it actually does properly, not for something it fundamentally cannot do properly. It measures what's happening on your server. It cannot tell you what's happening with your visitors because it doesn't run there and cannot obtain that information via server logs.

    10. Re: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It gives you 0 insight into your traffic, and has 0 tools to track any user activity other than the most basic.
      Awstats is from the same era, and much better. Both are inadequate for modern scenarios.

    11. Re: Yes by SpzToid · · Score: 1

      Webalizer while good for some folks is ancient technology.

      The value is analytics has to do with who is funding the website and its development to begin with. Speaking as a professional, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the ELK Stack yet in this thread, so here I am. Look at all the pretty graphic dashboards Kibana can be configured to display. It's free, and open-source, with paid support. And it works based purely off of log data, no javascript or magic-bits required, unlike everything else i can think of.

      IMHO, I am happy as a developer, when/if I can tweak such wonderful reports, nee(!), dashboards worthy of large monitors in the hallways and lobby of whoever is funding the website.

      And for bonus points: everything 'normal' can be removed from the search results, leaving you with every single hacker attempt made; filtered to your heart's content and then you can work to block the MoFo's at the server-level.

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
    12. Re: Yes by SpzToid · · Score: 1

      p.s. Many government agencies are required to justify their own funding, and rely on websites heavily for their mission; hence the value of knowing what is working and what is not working (i.e. analytics). Just for example: SAMHSA

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
    13. Re: Yes by coofercat · · Score: 1

      In fairness, Webalizer is pretty basic. When I last used it in anger, it still couldn't properly geo IP addresses and instead just used their reverse DNS to say all ".com" IPs were from the USA. That sort of thing is never going to get past any sort of 'SEO' or marketing function people.

      However, GA can accept stats that you submit. I'm sure someone must have made a webalizer-style package that scrapes log files and send GA events. That way your marketing droids can still get whizzy graphs, but only from your server logs instead of cookies.

      If that's still too 'big brother' for you, then you can run your own OpenWebAnalytics (http://www.openwebanalytics.com/) server and similarly send log information to it. You could start allowing cookies again, and then use your own endpoints to collect metrics rather than 3rd parties too. Which ever way you do it, you do get a slightly more modern looking solution this way.

      I believe Splunk can do analytics quite respectably, as could an ELK stack, but I'd argue that they're a bit more of a big deal to operate and run, and don't really hit the mark for the marketing folks. YMMV.

      Ultimately, GA is for the lazy. It's blocked by a measurable percentage of visitors these days, and (probably) gets some spam too, so it's accuracy isn't what it once was. When GA first came out, it was a more convenient and far superior version of Webalizer, but these days alternatives exist.

    14. Re: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe because that's none of your business and the root of why people hate you.

    15. Re: Yes by SpzToid · · Score: 1

      p.p.s. Let's say you're a major service like the NY Times and you have 20 web servers just to load balance demand. And then one got hacked, or whatever. Fortunately you were transmitting log data in real-time to a consolidating, indexing Logstash/ElasticSearch appliance so you can easily search for, and see what exactly went wrong and when. ELK Stack FTW!

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
  2. Block It by mentil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have google-analytics.com set to Untrusted in NoScript. Privacy Badger blocks the whole domain by default. I suspect Firefox's tracking protection also blocks it.
    This post gets extra irony points given Slashdot uses Google Analytics.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Block It by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      I have google-analytics.com set to Untrusted in NoScript. Privacy Badger blocks the whole domain by default. I suspect Firefox's tracking protection also blocks it. This post gets extra irony points given Slashdot uses Google Analytics.

      Did you ever go through and see just what all bullshit is being stopped by those two? Yikes!

      I'm in a discussion with a person on a different board who was wanting to stop FB tracking. I told him to install a scriptblocker.

      Next thing, another guy barges in saying I was talking bullshit - all you need to do is empty your cookies. Said he was a web developer, and got hysterical when I disagreed.

      I guess he must have some reason for people to run all the scripts.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's funny that you say that.
      I've done a fair bit of web-dev stuff over the years on the side. From a friends website (well, all of us, our file and game host) to concrete construction companies.
      One thing I have noticed is a lot of web-developers are just as retarded as some of the clients who want websites made.
      No wonder so many sites are trivial to hack.

      I say "web-developers" very loosely though. Self-claimed web-developers who copy-pasted bits and pieces from Stackoverflow and the like until a website was done.
      These sites are notorious for being filled with horribly hackable code, especially in web-dev. (and especially with PHP, Wordpress and other child projects based around it!)
      As always, these sites should only ever be used as a guide, not a functional standard of code.
      The biggest issue with these sites, sadly, is even well-thought out rebuttals to the broken code usually gets downvoted to oblivion if you happen to piss off a regular. (as you experienced with that person claiming rank lol)
      Cronyism on help-sites is the worst. It makes Reddit and 4chan hiveminds look like childs-play!
      Wikipedia is still king for that, though.

    3. Re:Block It by Misagon · · Score: 1

      Have you checked?
      I use Privacy Badger (2019.1.30), and www.google-analytics.com, as well as www.googletagmanager.com and www.googletagservices.com have got categorised under "The domains below don't appear to be tracking you".

      --
      "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    4. Re:Block It by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's funny that you say that. I've done a fair bit of web-dev stuff over the years on the side. From a friends website (well, all of us, our file and game host) to concrete construction companies. One thing I have noticed is a lot of web-developers are just as retarded as some of the clients who want websites made. No wonder so many sites are trivial to hack.

      I say "web-developers" very loosely though. Self-claimed web-developers who copy-pasted bits and pieces from Stackoverflow and the like until a website was done.

      Exactly. I've done some websites as a learning experience, and then comparing them to "professional" done sites, I'm shocked, and not in a good way. Copy and paste is exactly what they are. What is exceptionally amazing is that these masters of html still can't produce a site that looks good on desktop and mobile.

      But yeah, it seems that there are a lot of web developers who are not terribly adroit. I mean K. Ryste - he had to have some idea of what was in those scripts he was putting on his site. Ach, maybe he dosn't know what whois or wireshark is.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    5. Re:Block It by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      NoScript and DNS blocking both together sounds ideal, but if I had to pick just one, I'd keep NoScript.

      Most of the networks I'm on, someone else will have already cached the DNS lookups in the router anyway - the lookups aren't going to Google every time. The potential for detailed tracking there is a lot less than with a script having free reign to do whatever it wants.

    6. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Word. I hoped I never would have to say it but... fuck Google. Thankfully someone had a foresight to implement "don't be evil" canary.

    7. Re:Block It by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      So we should probably support Google Analytics because it's easy to block, unlikely self-hosted solutions which don't offer an easy to kill domain name.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there's a list floating around, with all the dns names for facebooks servers. I just blackhole the entire set.
      facebook, doesn't exist, as far as DNS is concerned.

    9. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I checked and ublock matrix blocks them all.

    10. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're helping RUSSIA!!

    11. Re:Block It by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      NoScript and DNS blocking both together sounds ideal, but if I had to pick just one, I'd keep NoScript. Most of the networks I'm on, someone else will have already cached the DNS lookups in the router anyway - the lookups aren't going to Google every time. The potential for detailed tracking there is a lot less than with a script having free reign to do whatever it wants.

      Exactly. Scripts are the child from hell. It's not only that they are tracking you, they can execute, and does anyone know one of the most compelling reasons behind ever increasing data caps for smartphones? you got it. My favorite personal anecdote from earlier times was when I downloaded a 40 Kbyte or so pdf file, and ended up downloading 40 megabytes worth of.....scripts mostly. There were many times I blew through my cap in a couple days back in the day.

      Today if I have to use my smartphone for the internet, I tether it to my laptop, which is battened down pretty hard.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    12. Re:Block It by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      there's a list floating around, with all the dns names for facebooks servers. I just blackhole the entire set. facebook, doesn't exist, as far as DNS is concerned.

      As long as they don't keep adding more. But both that and script blocking is good.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    13. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, no shit! I am fucking blocking it as as I type. It all gets pi-holed. Every god damn site on the net tries to use it. Google is an evil cancer. I can't believe people use that shit. Serves them right, I hope they get fucked.

    14. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With my pi-hole, your script URL doesn't even get loaded, much less run.

    15. Re:Block It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      New Chrome made UBlock permanently useless. Only blocks 30k things in new API https://www.bleepingcomputer.c...

    16. Re:Block It by mentil · · Score: 1

      You're right, seems I'd manually blocked it. Can't revert for some reason (bug?), so can't check what the default setting is.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    17. Re:Block It by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Why would you care about self-hosted analytics? I don't mind if individual sites perform site-specific analytics. I just don't want any single company being able to track me across the entire web without my consent.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    18. Re:Block It by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Yes, but slashdot readers know that if they host their own (free) analytics software, then they'll get unblocked results.

      The only reasonable use case for Google Analytics is for sites that also run Google ads. In that case, it is basically a feature to leave out the adblocking visitors. :)

    19. Re: Block It by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      I noticed similar on my phone, somehow Chrome was eating up even more data than YouTube. The WWW has truly gotten to a sad state when loading a few pages of text and images uses more bandwidth than streaming video for the same amount of time... It's barely any better than ActiveX plugins and Flash. Somewhat less likely to get you installed with a rootkit, though.

    20. Re: Block It by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I noticed similar on my phone, somehow Chrome was eating up even more data than YouTube. The WWW has truly gotten to a sad state when loading a few pages of text and images uses more bandwidth than streaming video for the same amount of time... It's barely any better than ActiveX plugins and Flash. Somewhat less likely to get you installed with a rootkit, though.

      The internet is sick - very sick.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  3. No, keep using Google Analytics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can easily block that.

  4. Re: Do Not Track by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I fail to see how tracking and having personal identifying information are the same thing. You are only tracking if you use personal identitying information to... track...

  5. For $14/mo fathom isn't really compelling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GA is a pain in ass, but it's a very good product which works well enough for most cases, even including apps.
    Because data is all sampled though, things are always a bit wonky in GA land.
    Privacy-wise, the longest you can track a user for is 90 days. Identifying people via hardware fingerprints, device id's is depecated, but there are facilities to do it,and to hand sessions belonging to uniquely ID"d people between products.

    So, despite their statements to the contrary, google are still happily tracking the sh*t out of everyone.

    1. Re:For $14/mo fathom isn't really compelling. by greenwow · · Score: 1

      The sampling part is why I switched to Piwik (now named Matomo) about three years ago. It really sucks trying to find rare events with GA when all of the reports have such a small sample. We had problems that were happing thousands of times a day that wouldn't show-up on Google Analytics.

  6. Re:Do Not Track by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do not track is a waste of your time, tracking software ignores it and fingerprint users in many ways weather they use DNT or not.

  7. Wrong Question: One word too many. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The question should be: Is it time to ditch Google?

    The answer to which, for me, is a resounding yes.

    I'm moving away from all Google services where possible, but I have some problems:
      1) I need a viable alternative email provider. Gmail isn't perfect, but of all the evils, it was the least at the time. What are my alternatives? (I could use one of my own domains, but I'm unsure if I'll always keep them active/hosted).
    2) YouTube. Obviously, this isn't critical, but I'd like to learn about anything in the ballpark.
    3) Maps/Earth. In spite of the godawful things they've done or not done with Maps over the years, Google still stands out here. Is there really a strong alternative?

    Thanks in advance. Google take notice, you've screwed the pooch. Don't be evil my ass.

    1. Re:Wrong Question: One word too many. by woozlewuzzle · · Score: 1

      nomoregoogle.com, which is mentioned in the article, has options for many Google services. I've been very happy with ProtonMail, though there are some inconveniences, like no full-content search with the web client (since that runs into decryption issues). Supposedly that's being worked on, though. Main thing I'm still looking for is a Calendar replacement, which doesn't appear on the nomoregoogle list.

    2. Re: Wrong Question: One word too many. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try protonmail

    3. Re: Wrong Question: One word too many. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Calendar - the one built in into IOS. Works really well.
      Maps - after the Garmin idiots bought, broke and killed NAVIGON so they can continue to push their unpolished garmin turd, I found HERE maps to be just about perfect once you get over the visual style

    4. Re:Wrong Question: One word too many. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In terms of alternative email providers, check out protonmail. Its servers are hosted in switzerland.
      In terms of youtube, check out peertube, or do what i do and subscribe to youtube chans using gpodder (no ads, no tracking, all vids downloaded for offline use and in chronological order. you'll never miss content again)
      in terms of maps, check out osmand

    5. Re: Wrong Question: One word too many. by Maelwryth · · Score: 1

      Posteo is good. It is also the only service I have used that refused to send if the connection was not encrypted the whole way through (although, you have to turn that on).

      --
      I reserve the write to mangle english.
  8. More for my HOSTS file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll add Matomo, Simple and Fathom to my HOSTS file. Thanks. Most of the Google/Doubleclick domains have been in there for years.

    I have a better idea for analytics: Learn to read and parse your web server logs, and stop trying to let everyone and his brother spy on your visitors.

    1. Re:More for my HOSTS file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are you going to block Matomo in your hosts file? It is distributed, usually hosted by the company that owns the website. The domains and IPs will vary for every website.

    2. Re: More for my HOSTS file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are using hosts you are doing it wrong. The right way is to do it with a DNS server in your router and have the entire network protected at once.

    3. Re: More for my HOSTS file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're doing it wrong eggshell perimeter security only! DNS = in trouble https://threatpost.com/gov-war... routers = attacked like crazy too (all have vulnerabilities).

    4. Re: More for my HOSTS file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You run your own DNS on the router - AND a firewall that prevent the devices from using any other dns server than said router. So no dns hijack then.

    5. Re: More for my HOSTS file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Routers present their own layer of vulnerability in and of themselves. Weekly there have been reports of router compromise for years. Eggshell perimeter security only again from you and firewalls don't stop local systems using another DNS either if they are setup to do so for resolution even on a local network.

  9. European Commission ???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know which little European Commission website use Matomo has they should use PIWIK ( http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/servic... ).

    1. Re:European Commission ???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PIWIK is Matomo. They renamed it a while back.

  10. Matamoto starts at 9 euros a month! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nah, I'll just use free google analytics, thanks for your concern tho.

    1. Re:Matamoto starts at 9 euros a month! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      matomo is self hosted, retard

  11. This is an advertisement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    for a company that offers crippled open source version, and then expects you to pay a monthly subscription to get feature parity with Google.

  12. slashdot uses it, so the answer is no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    slashdot uses google analytics because it's blocked by noscript... isn't there some law about headlines which are queries always being no?

  13. Time? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    I blocked Google Analytics on the router level years ago (so that it works on phones and tablets at home too) and I thought everybody did it.

  14. It's a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The link provided for alternatives that do not track you includes a number of apps that, whilst not tracking you, definitely harvest and sell your data, I imagine goog would be one of the customers.

    Also, a few "alternatives" that once you analyse the whois info, you realise that alphabet is actually the parent company. Video hosting and mapping sites - ofte goog is the back end infrastructure provider. In the case of browsers, if it's chrome based you are fucked since about version 70 anyway.

  15. Hosts = a faster & more efficient way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    0.0.0.0 google-analytics.com IS a faster + more efficient way as hosts operate long before usermode addons + in faster/more cpu serviced kernelmode as part of the IP stack & hosts also don't parse html tags like NoScript has to for "script src" all thru a webpage (saves time on BOTH FRONTS for operational speed).

    * Hosts also do a LOT MORE on the DNS/resolution front that addons CAN'T do - protecting you vs. DNS requestlog trackings OR the recent wave of DNS redirect poisonings that U.S. DHS warned us of https://threatpost.com/gov-war... by using hardcoded favorite sites of yours you spend most time at.

    APK

    P.S.=> For the best hosts file multiplatform:

    APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p (remove spaces between chars & download)

    APK Hosts File Engine 10++ SR-1 32/64-bit for Windows https://hosts-file.net/?s=Down... (DL link @ bottom)

    Soon 4 MacOS... apk

  16. Re:Hosts = a faster & more efficient way by Luthair · · Score: 1

    FYI web browsers already include code that parses the HTML before showing it to the user and doesn't use magic to extract URLs & download scripts.

  17. Google simply sets NoScript as untrusted. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google simply sets NoScript as untrusted.

  18. Re:Matomo uses PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow people still use php ?
    Why not javascript ?

  19. Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone? Give me a solid reason to do so.

    1. Re:Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone should tag this +5 insightful.

      Analytics harm web users. It shouldn't even be legal.

      No business needs to know its users. Know yourself, as a business, instead.

    2. Re:Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I helped modernize the website for our family business and we use GA for some very simple metrics that we find useful -- and I don't believe it is unreasonable. We track things like average time on page, media played, largest entry/exit pages, etc, to understand which pages might need more information. For example we made sure to highlight our business contact information on our most common exit pages (beyond whats in our standard template). We also track conversions to understand which pages have higher correlation to sales -- e.g. highlighting that our testimonials page is a big boost to ultimate conversions. That is valuable data that isn't so simple to pull from tools like Webalizer (although its admittedly been about 10 years since I used Webalizer). It also isn't diving into personal information -- just the habits of users engaging in the site so we can try to make the site better.

    3. Re:Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by buffcleb · · Score: 1

      we've been running piwik/matomo for over ten years. We use it to track low usage periods for upgrades and to track specific links in our sites. Our traffic is very cyclical so identifying low periods of activity allows us to better plan maintenance while impacting the fewest number of users...

    4. Re:Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by Oligonicella · · Score: 2

      Do you guarantee your visitors their data and activities stay on your site and Google doesn't get their hands on it? Once they have it, they have it to do whatever they want.

      If I visit your site, I have GA blocked. Unfortunately, you aren't getting the data but much more importantly, Google isn't. You may perhaps be trustworthy about not diving into personal information but they are known to be untrustworthy.

    5. Re:Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by froggyjojodaddy · · Score: 1

      I am responsible for running a website for a large corp. Some of the things we use analytics for:

      - Understanding where our daily volume comes from geographically. This let's us understand if we need to bolster mirror sites so they are more responsive
      - Understand how many people consume our content using different languages. Without analytics, we wouldn't be able to budget accordingly to ensure we're meeting our global customer demands
      - Performance management. Analytics tell us how quickly pages are loading. If a certain page is loading much slower than others, we know it means there's a high chance of abandonment so we have to look at the page and see how it can be optimized


      There's probably 50 more things I can list but we wouldn't be nearly as effective without analytics.

    6. Re:Why in hell allow *any* analytics? by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      Well, let's see...
      - Because you want to know what pages of your site are being used, and which ones aren't.
      - Because you want to know what browsers you need to support, based on what your users are using.
      - Because you want to do A/B testing of a new feature.
      - Because you want to know minute-by-minute the load on your Web server.

      If you are running a personal site, then yeah, who cares. But if you have lots of users, who complain when things don't work, you need analytics. And...Google Analytics is easy to implement and very rich in features, not to mention, free.

  20. It depends. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    Do you want to play super-nice with Google? Or do you need GAs features? Then a corporate account and tie everything concerning your website including analytics to it.

    Other than that, use Piwik or whatever it's successor is called these days.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  21. Browsers = slower usermode... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & addons COMPOUND it more using more resources & messagepass overhead (WHY stacking multiple addons slows you down NO MATTER WHAT browser makers do) + CHROME IS BREAKING YOUR ADDONS probably for GOOD as far as ad & malware blocking https://www.bleepingcomputer.c...

    Severely limiting e.g. UBlock to only 30,000 blocks (far from complete like by 1/100th++ or more of what ACTUALLY EXISTS in bad things to block)

    Hosts resolve your fav. sites (protects against DNS down OR POISONED too) FASTER vs. DNS!

    PLUS less security issues - DNS poisoned kaminsky redirect flaw U.S. Gov't. WARNS OF https://threatpost.com/gov-war...

    APK

    P.S.=> Addons = easily detected & blocked by webmasters + run in SLOW usermode (vs. hosts in FASTER kernelmode as part of the IP stack) & NO SINGLE addon does as much as hosts & hosts do so for FAR LESS too, e.g. NO DNS RESOLUTION value faster in hosts (as it is blocking vs. NoScript in usermode vs. tracking/malware scripts)... apk

  22. It's way past time by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    GA is effectively dead. Millions of users are already blocking this and every other external service similar to it in existence. The result is data provided by these services is at very least incomplete.

    If you want accurate figures install a stats package and parse your own web logs. It's not rocket science.

    1. Re:It's way past time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Milions?! Trillions!
      Sure ...

    2. Re:It's way past time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the PHB wants his stats presented in a material design. If not then they are inferior and invalid.

      And the backend has to be written in oo go, because perl and c are unsafe. OOOOoooOOOoooOOOoo1

  23. Browsers=slow usermode+Google broke addons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & addons make it worse using more resources & messagepass overhead (+ stacking multiple addons slows you down) + CHROME IS BREAKING YOUR ADDONS probably for GOOD as far as ad & malware blocking https://www.bleepingcomputer.c...

    Severely limiting e.g. UBlock to only 30,000 blocks (far from complete like by 1/100th++ or more of what ACTUALLY EXISTS in bad things to block)

    Hosts resolve your fav. sites (protects against DNS down OR POISONED too) FASTER vs. DNS!

    PLUS less security issues - DNS poisoned kaminsky redirect flaw U.S. Gov't. WARNS OF https://threatpost.com/gov-war...

    APK

    P.S.=> Addons = easily detected & blocked by webmasters + run in SLOW usermode (vs. hosts in FASTER kernelmode as part of the IP stack) & NO SINGLE addon does as much as hosts & hosts do so for FAR LESS too, e.g. NO DNS RESOLUTION value faster in hosts (as it is blocking vs. NoScript in usermode vs. tracking/malware scripts)... apk

  24. Matomo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Matomo is MySQL only.

  25. News at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody gives a fsck about DDG!

  26. Is it time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it time to stop asking stupid questions and pretending it's a headline?

  27. Managers can't handle Awstats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is not pretty enough. It is not the actual stats that matter in business. It is their presentation.

    Give them less meaningful, incomplete and inaccurate stats, and as long as it looks like a google page, they'll love it. They really do not care about the actual numbers.

    1. Re:Managers can't handle Awstats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha this is true, my experience as well

  28. A lot of ignorant shit on ./ today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google analytics and all other analytics products reflect a basic level of competency on the part of the website. What's surprising to me is that a ton of sites set up all of these analytics services incorrectly in the first place. What does a publisher/web admin want to know? "How many people are visiting my site?" "How many bots are visiting my site? what are their user agent headers?" "How are my users interacting with my site?" . None of those questions matter if you setup the analytics incorrectly. With most content sites being served by wordpress bloggers, who know NOTHING, I'm surprised the question is whether GA is dead or not. The question is whether automated analytics solves the real problems of content creators who are not technically minded. GA isn't the answer but roll your own isn't the answer either. A smarter service would be the answer.

  29. I don't think so. by M.+Ayub · · Score: 2

    Google analytics is a matured product which has been used by millions. I don't think any other product can replace it, because it is more trusted and and time tested. As a strong organization like Google is behind it.

    --
    Developer at www.waterfiltersuae.com
    1. Re:I don't think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's being blocked by millions because its well known.

      You will get more accurate stats from a self implemented web log parser.

      By using GA you are cutting a not insignificant percentage of your users out of your analytics.

      So your argument for using GA is actually a very strong point against it.

  30. Google Spying by johnsie · · Score: 1

    I'm blocking that

  31. Re:Matomo uses PHP by johnsie · · Score: 1

    Nice troll. Around 30% of websites use Wordpress which is php. That doesn't count other sites developed in php that don't use Wordpress. The only realsitic alternatives are some of the hipster JS backends or C# which are not as popular or flexible as php.

  32. Re: Do Not Track by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or we could add teeth to it and enforce it as computer fraud. Google and other ad companies' argument boils down to claims that no trespassing signs are worthless. Sure they are are worthless, until you get sued.