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Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

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Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#101

Post by lioeters »

xiaq wrote: post #80
harianus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your business is to track people, yes. If it's to gather statistics without tracking people (like page views), I think it perfectly fine to bypass ad blockers. We even have a dedicated feature for bypassing ad blockers [1] because we think page views are not privacy invasive. We drop IP addresses from every request so there is no personal data in our database or logs. If you really want to block you can enable the…

The privacy game is about power, not about who is doing what right now. People shun Google's data collection because of what Google can do with the data, not what it has done or is doing; it only takes a single case of data misuse to reveal the power dynamics even if nothing has happened to them personally. You don't have to play the privacy game -- there is a lot of space between really respecting user's privacy and…

Thank you for that comment. It means a lot that such a thoughtful consideration of privacy is coming from someone working at Google, there is hope yet for a humane approach to analytics and data collection.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#102

Post by ceejayoz »

harianus wrote: post #100
judge2020 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author said it himself, he could have just put Cloudfront in front of Pages and parsed the access logs there. The referrer and user-agent, which are sent by the browser, are in the request headers. There would be no need for JS or an image if the website owner just changed their setup. How do you deal with this sort of tracking?

What do you mean? I think using CloudFront is not accurate enough if you use caching.

They've got an enterprise logging tool that'll give you all the info needed for this sort of tracking. https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/216672448-C...

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#103

Post by Zenbit_UX »

eruci wrote: post #90

I removed GA completely on https://geocode.xyz/ Cloudflare provides all the basic analytics I need and I can parse the log files in the command line if I need more.

I'm also doing cloudflare only but they don't give you certain important metrics like unique sessions.

Can you tell me where and how you are parsing cloudflare logs?

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#105

Post by notafraudster »

harianus wrote: post #78
xiaq wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never call your script anything like tracking, analytics, or pixel when you don't want to be blocked by ad blockers. But this is a tracking script, no? If I were you I'd keep the name that way so that if people don't want to be tracked, they don't.

If your business is to track people, yes. If it's to gather statistics without tracking people (like page views), I think it perfectly fine to bypass ad blockers. We even have a dedicated feature for bypassing ad blockers [1] because we think page views are not privacy invasive. We drop IP addresses from every request so there is no personal data in our database or logs. If you really want to block you can enable the…

I don't think what you're doing is the end of the world, but answer this is extremely patronizing.

You've basically said you know some users block your stuff, but you think they probably shouldn't really want to block your stuff, so you devise an end run around them.

Then, finally, you conclude that if they really want to block your stuff, they should do something that you yourself admit won't block your stuff, but that's okay because they shouldn't want to block your stuff.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#106

Post by mobjack »

tdhz77 wrote: post #91

“Most tracking systems, including Google Analytics, don’t work at all without JavaScript.“ I have found solutions with GA, matomo, fantom all to have image based solutions that you can use.

99.9% of those on the web have JavaScript enabled.

The audience who disables it is incredibly small and doesnt want to be tracked anyways.

It shouldn't be a factor in your analytics solution unless you want to track bots too.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#107

Post by avian »

xfitm3 wrote: post #94
avian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've also been using awstats for many years. It definitely works for a small site, has a lot of useful features and occasional releases still keep up with new user agents, etc. that pop up over time. Each time I want to switch I fail to find a suitable replacement. That said, behind the curtain, awstats has plenty of problems and shows its age. Most of it is a single ~20 kline script with hundreds of global vari…

I read issue [2] and I think its reasonable to do this at the LogFormat level. awstats doesn't need to do everything, that is probably how it got to be 20,000 lines. I always use awstats to generate static pages, and that's what any security conscientious operator should do.

You see a reasonable technical response.

I see users with a valid issue (even quoting relevant laws) being called names and told in a patronizing tone that widely accepted interpretations of said laws are wrong.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#108

Post by taormina »

busymom0 wrote: post #57
taormina wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not accusing Amazon or anyone else of anything in particular. I'm just reminding people that even if you encrypt all of your data at rest, that at a minimum, every service provider of something like AWS is collecting plenty of metadata about your data. They have to. How else can they tell where your data is and track how much they need to charge you?

> How else can they tell where your data is and track how much they need to charge you? Are you being serious with this question? Regardless of whether they look at your data behind the scenes without telling you or not, you don't need to know what type of exact data and metadata you have to charge you. My AWS bill charges me for CPU hours uptime for the server, network requests, load balancing etc. None of this need…

I was thinking more about S3, where I know for a fact that are charging on a per-request basis and a volume basis. Amazon can and should absolutely charge them irrespective of the contents of the blob of data, and regardless of whether they read it or not, my point is encrypt it if you're worried.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#109

Post by redm »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #84
redm wrote: post #82

This looks like a solution in need of a problem. Previously I had tried some similar things at scale, mainly because I wanted upsampled reports and GA charges $100,000 for premium services. What I found is that raw logs are not reliably accurate. The volume of traffic in certain countries was accurate but not reliably “real” users even after accounting for known bots, search engines etc. GA has a way of accounting fo…

I prefer the raw logs. One reason is that Google performs "statistical improvement" like "sessonizing." This act destroys the value of point process data. It wouldn't be found in a stats textbook because the operation destroys valuable information. Also, the concept of Visitors and Users that GA uses isn't transparent to me. Another fun fact. Since the tracking happens on the client side, there's potentially a ton of…

I think those are fair points; mileage will depend on your end-goals. We want to know how our traffic relates to real-world ad deliverability, real users in our funnel, etc. I'd agree with "Also, the concept of Visitors and Users that GA uses isn't transparent to me." but I'd add that whatever they do, is more accurate than what we could get from raw logs, as it relates to relatable business metrics.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#110

Post by jamiequint »

notafraudster wrote: post #105
harianus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your business is to track people, yes. If it's to gather statistics without tracking people (like page views), I think it perfectly fine to bypass ad blockers. We even have a dedicated feature for bypassing ad blockers [1] because we think page views are not privacy invasive. We drop IP addresses from every request so there is no personal data in our database or logs. If you really want to block you can enable the…

I don't think what you're doing is the end of the world, but answer this is extremely patronizing. You've basically said you know some users block your stuff, but you think they probably shouldn't really want to block your stuff, so you devise an end run around them. Then, finally, you conclude that if they really want to block your stuff, they should do something that you yourself admit won't block your stuff, but t…

I'm fine with people being patronizing towards whiny, entitled users who think they have a right to use any website they want on their terms.

If you don't like someone running log analysis on their traffic then don't go to their website, nobody forced you to.

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