Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
usefathom.com
Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
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Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#2For people looking for similar options, there's also Matomo[1] (previously Piwik) that you can self-host for free.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#3No complaints about the little I can see of the service here, and the point of protecting the privacy of our users is well-taken.
But at the same time, stats packages have been available for year simply by parsing your server logs (awstats, etc). Old solutions still work, even if the problem space is evolving in new directions.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#4My own Redistats [0] is not open source but a good alternative and has a good privacy policy [1]. It is the only stat tracker I use for my sites.
[0] https://redistats.com/ [1] https://redistats.com/privacy-policy
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#5My own Redistats [0] is not open source but a good alternative and has a good privacy policy [1]. It is the only stat tracker I use for my sites. [0] https://redistats.com/ [1] https://redistats.com/privacy-policy
So freepdfs.org is 404 at the moment.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#6> "[Google Analytics is] assembling data profiles on your website visitors, which they can then use for better targeting of advertisements across their network."
I'm pretty sure this is misleading/false. I don't think Google uses Analytics data from your site to target AdWords on other sites.
Maybe it's true in a general sense that GA gives them lots of aggregate data which they can use to make smarter business decisions about other products including ads. But it is a myth that Google Analytics data feeds directly into any Google ad-targeting platform.
I think the main thing Google gets out of free-tier Analytics is it encourages small webmasters to pay attention to their traffic and makes it easy to demonstrate the value of buying ads from Google.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#7> The problem is this: if we aren’t paying for the product, we are the product.
This quote keeps living on endlessly. It's based on a naive and terribly over-simplified view of the internet, 'free' products, and capitalism in general. TLDR: Consumers aren't the product if the product would not exist without customers, and customers wouldn't be on the product unless it provides them value.
Not to mention publisher web analytics, such as this, are rarely being used to target ads. That is a completely different .js file (still) being embedded alongside the analytics.
I'm all for privacy but it's important to be accurate about this stuff. No major newspaper or free site is going to stop 'making their visitors the product' by switching to a privacy-first web analytics product. FB has accomplished equally as much as Google Analytics without providing any analytics service.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#8My own Redistats [0] is not open source but a good alternative and has a good privacy policy [1]. It is the only stat tracker I use for my sites. [0] https://redistats.com/ [1] https://redistats.com/privacy-policy
So freepdfs.org is 404 at the moment.
Thanks, explains the dip in traffic of the home page.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#9> The problem is this: if we aren’t paying for the product, we are the product. This quote keeps living on endlessly. It's based on a naive and terribly over-simplified view of the internet, 'free' products, and capitalism in general. TLDR: Consumers aren't the product if the product would not exist without customers, and customers wouldn't be on the product unless it provides them value. Not to mention publisher web…
I agree that it's simplistic, but it captures the fact that organizations need money to survive. Yes, companies offering "free" products have to serve two masters: the ones who use the product, and the ones who pay the bills. For many, the temptation will be strong to maximize profits as far as possible without completely losing the users. Facebook has been in the news a lot because of this very thing.
I think the core of this statement really is that if the users and funders of a product are the same, their interests are much better aligned.
Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics
#10Well my first thought was, wait, what if this is a trojan horse? Like, what if a big evil tech giant was behind this and this started all 100% ok but it was/is a trap? And even if it’s not a current evil tech giant behind this, what if fathom becomes google over time?