Goat counter's been good and doesn't fingerprint.
Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
241–250 of 320 posts
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strange. Fully valid certificate. Try hard refreshing a few times.
Still no luck, this is the URL https://app.usefathom.com/share/lsqyv/pjrvs . Did not load in Chrome either.
So strange. I've run it through multiple checkers and all of them are valid. No other issues reported, just this one.
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently this repo contains "Fathom Lite", a (from a codebase perspective) unrelated predecessor of what is currently being sold as a SaaS.
And it seems that Fathom Lite misses one of the main selling points of Fathom - cookieless tracking.
Yes - Fathom Lite would need a good refactor to not use cookies.
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#244I have my own self-hosted Matomo instance [1]. Via Docker & docker-compose it's quite easy to install and keep up to date and Matomo is open source, well maintained, very well behaved and pretty hands off. And I configured it on my websites with cookies turned off [2] and with IP anonymization [3]. In such an instance you don't need consent, or even a cookie banner, because you're not dropping cookies, or collecting…
I self-hosted Matomo for a year and a half (and took over the AUR package for it and improved it in the process). It was no trouble to run, but I ended up uninstalling it late last year, for a few reasons: its interface is painfully slow (and that’s nothing to do with my 1GB/1 vCPU VPS—I’ve interacted with a decent-sized instance at innocraft.cloud and it was similar), and I seldom looked at it, and I couldn’t think…
My websites are behind Cloudflare. If not Cloudflare then I'd use another CDN. Therefore I don't have logs.
Also I disagree about the slowness.
The script is loaded asynchrously, it does not block the page and I measure my loading times, which are really good actually. Just did a measurement and my front-page loads in 271 ms and this includes all network requests, including Matomo.
I don't think this is a real concern, but rather a premature optimization. If GoAccess works for you, great, but that's not something I can use due to CDN.
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No tracking Personally, I think that Fathom strikes a good balance between privacy and usability, but it does still use tracking (or at least it did when I was looking at it a few weeks back) - the difference is that it uses fingerprinting instead of cookies. I think it's implemented in a privacy-focused way, but it does look like they are ignoring some of the EU ePrivacy guidance, which explicitly states that cons…
We're not ignoring the guidance, it's just such a grey area when it comes to PECR / ePrivacy. Even the ICO's guidance, it talks about "cookie-like" technology. Our technology isn't cookie-like. And our processing isn't cookie-like either. We've had lawyers look at our documentation and all of them have said it's a grey area. You'll know this but some people reading might not: Under GDPR, there are multiple legal base…
> We're not ignoring the guidance, it's just such a grey area when it comes to PECR / ePrivacy. Even the ICO's guidance, it talks about "cookie-like" technology. Our technology isn't cookie-like. And our processing isn't cookie-like either. We've had lawyers look at our documentation and all of them have said it's a grey area.
That sounds like you are trying to pick and choose the bits you want to hear :)
There have been several ammendments since the original ePrivacy guidance. There is at least one such directive that is very explicit about fingerprinting specifically. If doesn't use ambiguous language, it states clearly that consent is required for fingerprinting.
As I said, I personally think it's just bonkers, and I think your service is absolutely in the spirit of the ePrivacy rules. But you can't say the rules on fingerprinting are not clear.
I'm keen to see what you've got coming, as the only way I see to avoid consent is not to associate identifiers with users at all - so each page hit would be a completely independent object. Can you say anything about your plans here?
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're not ignoring the guidance, it's just such a grey area when it comes to PECR / ePrivacy. Even the ICO's guidance, it talks about "cookie-like" technology. Our technology isn't cookie-like. And our processing isn't cookie-like either. We've had lawyers look at our documentation and all of them have said it's a grey area. You'll know this but some people reading might not: Under GDPR, there are multiple legal base…
> We're not ignoring the guidance, it's just such a grey area when it comes to PECR / ePrivacy. Even the ICO's guidance, it talks about "cookie-like" technology. Our technology isn't cookie-like. And our processing isn't cookie-like either. We've had lawyers look at our documentation and all of them have said it's a grey area. That sounds like you are trying to pick and choose the bits you want to hear :) There have…
Like I say, we've had lawyers review our docs. Even the term "fingerprinting" has more nuance to it. Fingerprinting is used as a way to attempt to set a permanent cookie / identify an individual, and their actions. We don't do this.
And we definitely agree that it's bonkers.
I can't say anything here until we've got our press release out.
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#247Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We're not ignoring the guidance, it's just such a grey area when it comes to PECR / ePrivacy. Even the ICO's guidance, it talks about "cookie-like" technology. Our technology isn't cookie-like. And our processing isn't cookie-like either. We've had lawyers look at our documentation and all of them have said it's a grey area. That sounds like you are trying to pick and choose the bits you want to hear :) There have…
Like I say, we've had lawyers review our docs. Even the term "fingerprinting" has more nuance to it. Fingerprinting is used as a way to attempt to set a permanent cookie / identify an individual, and their actions. We don't do this. And we definitely agree that it's bonkers. I can't say anything here until we've got our press release out.
> Like I say, we've had lawyers review our docs. Even the term "fingerprinting" has more nuance to it. Fingerprinting is used as a way to attempt to set a permanent cookie / identify an individual, and their actions. We don't do this.
Ouch, I kind of wish you hadn't said that, because it sounds like you're straying dangerously close into weasel words and deliberately incorrectly interpretations. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but what I've read is very clear.
As before I like your solution, and I think it's absolutely in the spirit of privacy. But the guidance is really clear here, and gives examples of fingerprinting. Nobody said a fingerprint has to be a permanent identifier; as far as I recall, Fathom does use fingerprinting to identify individuals, so that a sequence of page views can be attributed to a single visitor. I understand that those fingerprints include a timestamp, and so are only valid for some time (2 hours, or whatever it is).
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I self-hosted Matomo for a year and a half (and took over the AUR package for it and improved it in the process). It was no trouble to run, but I ended up uninstalling it late last year, for a few reasons: its interface is painfully slow (and that’s nothing to do with my 1GB/1 vCPU VPS—I’ve interacted with a decent-sized instance at innocraft.cloud and it was similar), and I seldom looked at it, and I couldn’t think…
My websites are behind Cloudflare. If not Cloudflare then I'd use another CDN. Therefore I don't have logs. Also I disagree about the slowness. The script is loaded asynchrously, it does not block the page and I measure my loading times, which are really good actually. Just did a measurement and my front-page loads in 271 ms and this includes all network requests, including Matomo. I don't think this is a real concer…
The painfully slow interface I’m speaking of is Matomo’s app, the part you as the site administrator look at; not piwik.js or whatever they call it now.
But since you’ve raised the script part, 50KB of JS loaded from a new host is perhaps surprisingly much work, especially on slower devices. I find the difference between running no JavaScript at all and running Matomo’s client script, even asynchronously, to be easily visible.
Re: Lightweight Alternatives to Google Analytics
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like I say, we've had lawyers review our docs. Even the term "fingerprinting" has more nuance to it. Fingerprinting is used as a way to attempt to set a permanent cookie / identify an individual, and their actions. We don't do this. And we definitely agree that it's bonkers. I can't say anything here until we've got our press release out.
> Like I say, we've had lawyers review our docs. Even the term "fingerprinting" has more nuance to it. Fingerprinting is used as a way to attempt to set a permanent cookie / identify an individual, and their actions. We don't do this. Ouch, I kind of wish you hadn't said that, because it sounds like you're straying dangerously close into weasel words and deliberately incorrectly interpretations. Sorry if that sounds…
Thanks for your input here, Gordon. It doesn't sound harsh at all, you clearly care about privacy regulations and you're trying to help. Ultimately, we had moved based on conversations with lawyers. But as I say, we are rolling out changes this week & next, so it doesn't matter what we think about the regulation :) And thanks again for the challenge.