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Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

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Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#51

Post by renewiltord »

throw10382 wrote: post #44
JimDabell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Server logs can't do this job well. If the system is designed well, in a lot of cases the users won't be receiving the resource from your server, they will be receiving it from a) their browser cache, b) their local network cache, c) their ISP's cache, or d) a CDN. Your server logs might be showing several thousand hits while the number of times a page is actually shown to somebody might be tens of thousands of hits.…

Is it possible to add a basic ping that pings your server whenever a page loads (cached or not) to get around this?

Yes, with Cache-Control, and then if you turn that product into a SaaS so that not every website has to run a copy, you get Google Analytics.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#52

Post by renewiltord »

Jonnax wrote: post #37

What's a good tool for doing server side analytics? Like for a small site I've made for fun. The only way I can easily know how many users visit is via Google analytics. Well easily that is.

When I was a child, I used AWStats. It's still around. Sorry this isn't of much help! Honestly I just wanted to reminisce :)

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#55

Post by bad_user »

jesterson wrote: post #29
nwellnhof wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another suggestion: Learn how to configure Google Analytics properly. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en "If all [data sharing] settings are OFF, your Analytics data is only used to provide and maintain the Analytics service."

Weill, this only "works" for you if you trust google. Given multiple security incidents in the past I am certainly not one of those people.

What security incidents?

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#56

Post by bad_user »

dave_aiello wrote: post #8

I have no love for Google Analytics, but as a small-scale publisher, I have serious questions about what tools can replace it: 1) Which analytics can a website employ that is not geared toward enriching the analytics platform developer by violating site visitor privacy? 2) Do those analytics mechanisms have any kind of aftermarket, such that third-party developers integrate it into publishing platforms that publisher…

I use a self-hosted Matomo instance, in a Docker setup on my own server. Low maintenance, works great:

https://matomo.org/

You can turn off the cookies too, anonymize IPs (the default actually) and if you do that you don't even need GDPR consent or cookie banners.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#57

Post by nindalf »

renewiltord wrote: post #51
throw10382 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to add a basic ping that pings your server whenever a page loads (cached or not) to get around this?

Yes, with Cache-Control, and then if you turn that product into a SaaS so that not every website has to run a copy, you get Google Analytics.

I think some startups are now trying to offer this as a self hosted service. That sidesteps the concerns around using a half baked, DIY solution as well as issues with privacy and data ownership.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#58

Post by baddox »

eecc wrote: post #40
JimDabell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Server logs can't do this job well. If the system is designed well, in a lot of cases the users won't be receiving the resource from your server, they will be receiving it from a) their browser cache, b) their local network cache, c) their ISP's cache, or d) a CDN. Your server logs might be showing several thousand hits while the number of times a page is actually shown to somebody might be tens of thousands of hits.…

Oh yes they do, and why would you want to break network caching to spy on your users? You can always add some little js to ping your server (logs! Again!) or a non-cacheable tracking pixel.

Sure, you can do that. Google Analytics is merely a free version of that service.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#59

Post by bad_user »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #4

Suggestion: the access logs your web server collects are enough for basic analytics, and if you are curious for more, you can manually instrument your site a little. You don't need to give Google the power to spy on your users.

Collecting server logs doesn't work if you host your website behind Cloudflare or another CDN.

You can setup some sort of pixel that's never cached and that transmits the page via query params, but then the implementation isn't reliable and a PITA.

If you have your own server, something like Matomo.org works better.

Re: Safari now blocks Google Analytics on sites, new Privacy Report feature shows

#60

Post by sergeykish »

AJRF wrote: post #54

Federated analytics soon? - Google gives you a docker container and an API key to run that collects metrics on your public/own cloud, that gets slurped up to Google and you still get your demographic info.

Clever, but could just send them logs
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