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GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

goatcounter.com

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Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#81

Post by AndrewStephens »

wastedhours wrote: post #76
AndrewStephens wrote: post #37

I applaud anyone one makes an effort to avoid thirdparty analytics products. Analytics in general does nothing to help the users of your site while pushing additional work onto the client and leaking information. But looking at data is fun so I ended up creating my own super light counter that I run on my site so I can see hits. My goal was to store as little information as possible - only hit counts as stored, and n…

> Analytics in general does nothing to help the users of your site I find this really interesting, and am amazed that more sites and services don't surface some of their analytics data to users. Look at the success of yearly "wrap up" campaigns (disclosure: I work for a company with one of the most famous versions of that mechanic, but don't work on it). You'll get users opting into some data and tracking if there's…

I like seeing general analytics about a site because I am nosy so I enjoy seeing "This blog post was visited 300 times" type information.

But I would hate to start seeing "You, personally, have visited this site 14 times" start cropping up because it would remind me how much information on me is available. Intellectually I know this data exists in Google Analytics, but actually seeing it would creep me out.

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#82

Post by sdfjkl »

What's wrong with just parsing the webserver logfiles like we used to do (I still do this)? Is that too old-fashioned now or something? Doesn't require any account or paying anything or setting any cookies (and therefore you don't need to have that annoying cookie warning your users hate so much).

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#83

Post by bobx11 »

sdfjkl wrote: post #82

What's wrong with just parsing the webserver logfiles like we used to do (I still do this)? Is that too old-fashioned now or something? Doesn't require any account or paying anything or setting any cookies (and therefore you don't need to have that annoying cookie warning your users hate so much).

If I remember correctly, even having the user IP address in your log files means you need to warn the user for some of the regulations.

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#84

Post by Eikon »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #37

I applaud anyone one makes an effort to avoid thirdparty analytics products. Analytics in general does nothing to help the users of your site while pushing additional work onto the client and leaking information. But looking at data is fun so I ended up creating my own super light counter that I run on my site so I can see hits. My goal was to store as little information as possible - only hit counts as stored, and n…

> Analytics in general does nothing to help the users of your site while pushing additional work onto the client and leaking information.

Analytics are a very useful tool to use in order to improve a product.

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#85

Post by WinonaRyder »

WinonaRyder wrote: post #2

Source code: https://github.com/zgoat/goatcounter . The author also gives a rationale for choosing the EUPL (EUROPEAN UNION PUBLIC LICENCE) here: https://www.arp242.net/license.html . EDIT: ksec posted this link: https://github.com/zgoat/goatcounter , but, at the time of writing, my comment is higher... It provides rationale for why GoatCounter exists and comments about _why not_ other solutions like Fathom, Open Web…

Arghh... too late to edit my comment...

ksec's link is: https://github.com/zgoat/goatcounter/blob/master/docs/ration...

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#87

Post by Quarrelsome »

sdfjkl wrote: post #82

What's wrong with just parsing the webserver logfiles like we used to do (I still do this)? Is that too old-fashioned now or something? Doesn't require any account or paying anything or setting any cookies (and therefore you don't need to have that annoying cookie warning your users hate so much).

Ye I did that (also I had to anonymise the ips) but someone decided to run a continuous pen-test against the site over the course of days (I swear they forgot to turn it off or smth) and tragically I had to rework my infrastructure to accommodate much greater traffic than expected (BIG BIG BIIIIIIIG log files) as it made some of my processing fall over.

Its nice if someone has just done some of that sort of stuff for you.

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#88

Post by akdas »

sdfjkl wrote: post #82

What's wrong with just parsing the webserver logfiles like we used to do (I still do this)? Is that too old-fashioned now or something? Doesn't require any account or paying anything or setting any cookies (and therefore you don't need to have that annoying cookie warning your users hate so much).

I don't have access to the logs when I deploy to Github Pages. Github Pages is really convenient for me for many reasons, but no access to the logs is the main downside when it comes to analytics.

Re: GoatCounter – Simple web statistics, with no tracking of personal data

#89

Post by everythingswan »

wastedhours wrote: post #76
AndrewStephens wrote: post #37

I applaud anyone one makes an effort to avoid thirdparty analytics products. Analytics in general does nothing to help the users of your site while pushing additional work onto the client and leaking information. But looking at data is fun so I ended up creating my own super light counter that I run on my site so I can see hits. My goal was to store as little information as possible - only hit counts as stored, and n…

> Analytics in general does nothing to help the users of your site I find this really interesting, and am amazed that more sites and services don't surface some of their analytics data to users. Look at the success of yearly "wrap up" campaigns (disclosure: I work for a company with one of the most famous versions of that mechanic, but don't work on it). You'll get users opting into some data and tracking if there's…

I think about this often while I work on small data sets and reporting, mostly lead and customer data (think PPC reporting or CAC:LTV reports) and I have a couple theories.

The one that seems most natural is that organizations don't want people to know how much data they have on them. If too much of it was customer-facing and not wrapped up in a cool "2019 Wrap Up" video, then pressure would mount to be even more transparent, and eventually accountable for, the data organizations collect.

I think there are a few others, like the value to the bottom line that it offers. Most companies optimize heavily there so the only real applications are the ones that would like to drive more revenue, such as "Only 2 seats left!" or "Last One In Stock!" messaging based on urgency and fear. One-dimensional stuff.

I also look at it from the resources perspective. I think lots of companies are spending time and resources pretty poorly. Companies I've worked with outside of startups often forget how and why they make money and end up spending lots of resources on things that might not matter. Service professionals, for example, usually rely on a network connection like the local Chamber of Commerce for business. Despite 80%+ of business coming through that channel, they insist of trying social media or PPC ads instead of doubling down or identifying a similar network when they explore growth. This is natural ignorance that they can learn to overcome.

I really hope we get more data-sourced initiatives in the future. I use a few apps that do a little bit of it but leave a lot to be desired: Goodreads, Strava, Nike Run Club, Spotify, Audible, Kindle, & YouTube come to mind.

My dream is to have a Life Dashboard. I had designed it with some of these apps in mind but the API's and the output I'd get weren't enough to pursue when life got busy.

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