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Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

plausible.io

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Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#451

Post by sidibe »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #443
sidibe wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Firefox is higher is probably because it's the easiest one to block ads on mobile. Most people I know who use Firefox on mobile do so specifically to have ublock origin. I personally use chrome on desktop but Firefox on mobile.

You have to be on Android to use addons with mobile Firefox. Since Android=Google, doesn't that mean you are giving Google all your data including browsing data and the fact that you are blocking ads?

I don't know, but it definitely blocks ads which is why I use it.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#452

Post by marcodiego »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #117
turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

"large scale AdWords fraud." Be carefull - fraud is a crime. But I am under no obligation to provide AdWords any data, let alone true and reliable data. Considering the tracking and spying, and my legitimate interest in privacy, there is no room for fraud argument here. PS: this would be probably a Hoax

I think it is just a matter of semantics. Let's call it "large scale AdWords statistics improvement". Look, sounds much better now!

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#453

Post by nix0n »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #443
sidibe wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Firefox is higher is probably because it's the easiest one to block ads on mobile. Most people I know who use Firefox on mobile do so specifically to have ublock origin. I personally use chrome on desktop but Firefox on mobile.

You have to be on Android to use addons with mobile Firefox. Since Android=Google, doesn't that mean you are giving Google all your data including browsing data and the fact that you are blocking ads?

Yes, but at least I don't have to see as many ads, and my phone's CPU doesn't spend as much time rendering ads, and my limited mobile bandwidth isn't all sucked up by ads.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#454

Post by JohnFen »

snowwrestler wrote: post #349
JohnFen wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Listening to your users" is a voluntary exchange with your users, not compelling data from them. The difference between the two is critical.

It’s amazing how far the goalposts have moved on analytical data. I worked retail in The Time Before The Web and we collected and analyzed data from our customers. We had a door clicker to give us a daily record of traffic. We did detailed analytics on what items customers bought when, to inform inventory and staffing decisions. We did regular people-counting studies to evaluate our merchandising in different parts o…

No goalposts have moved.

The difference between the two is that there's no question that counting heads walking through a door and watching inventory patterns are not personal to the customer.

With telemetry, including web analytics, there is always a question because there is no visibility as to their actual practices. It all amounts to "trust us". And we've had more than enough experience with these things to know that such trust is frequently misplaced -- so none of it can be trusted.

And GA especially cannot be trusted, and also happens to be pretty much ubiquitous.

As a side note, it's become just as dangerous to be in a physical store as online now. People who prefer not to be spied on must pay in cash, be sure to put their phones into airplane mode before entering the store, and so forth. And with the increasing adoption of face recognition in stores, it becomes risky to even show your face. In other words, they have to be as "on guard" in the store as online.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#456

Post by nix0n »

jeroenhd wrote: post #140

I expected these numbers to be higher. However, an even more interesting metric is the 88% block in Firefox. Firefox may not have a great market share, but based on these numbers it's market share may very well be eight times higher than your analytics report. This can change the argument of "it's only 3% of our users so we don't need to test on FF" to "it's a quarter of our user base, we should at least test it", de…

> I expected these numbers to be higher.

The actual numbers might be higher, the article notes that these numbers still don't include anyone who blocks first-party JS completely.

I don't know if any of the sampled websites actually work without first-party JS.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#457

Post by prepend »

napoleond wrote: post #440

I think this is why most sites—especially those targeting technical audiences—should rely on server-side analytics instead. Add some middleware to your web framework of choice which logs request data and parse that, or use something like https://www.tabbydata.com (disclaimer: I built that) to pipe it into a data warehouse. Voila! No JS tracking, retain useful metrics.

I’ve used server log analysis, awstats, for maybe 20-25 years. It’s really interesting the difference between awstats and Google analytics (or Adobe analytics, etc).

The reason I keep using Google stats on my backend is convenience and “Google magic” for tracking session length, bounce, behavior, etc etc. I can get most of that out of awstats, but that requires more work.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#458

Post by [deleted] »

Tom4hawk wrote: post #391
mardifoufs wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Samsung browser isn't actually that bad at all. Has some neat features that can't be found in Firefox or even Chrome, like the enhanced video playback tools. Plus it supports adblocking plug ins (though only FF has the much better ublock origin). Keep in mind that tons of website just outright won't work with Firefox mobile too, and it has a very annoying bug that has been known for years where all your tabs will…

> Keep in mind that tons of website just outright won't work with Firefox mobile I know this anecdotal but I'm using FF on Android (Lineage OS without google apps/micro g etc. - only F-Droid) and the only site that causes issues is google.com. For some unknown reason it servers images in much lower quality. Of course it's not a technical limitation. If you change your UA to chrome everything goes back to normal. That…

[deleted]

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#459

Post by thurn »

happybuy wrote: post #27

As a developer of an ad blocker[1] our stats would seem to back up what Plausible has found: - Despite having equivalent desktop (macOS) and mobile (iOS) apps, most of our users (> 75%) use the app primarily on desktop - Most users say the key reason for use is for privacy protection; even with Safari providing some inbuilt privacy tracking protection - Our app is focused on providing a simple 'set and forget' ad blo…

Are there any ad blockers for iOS that can block ads in google search results? Or is that kind of thing essentially impossible?

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#460

Post by rapnie »

mardifoufs wrote: post #337
rapnie wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it goes further than that: "Should I add an ad-blocker to your browser for an ad-free internet experience.. it'll only take 2 sec." and they respond: "Nah, not needed". And also "You are using the worst browser available to you (Samsung), shall I install Firefox?" and then "Nah, don't care".

The Samsung browser isn't actually that bad at all. Has some neat features that can't be found in Firefox or even Chrome, like the enhanced video playback tools. Plus it supports adblocking plug ins (though only FF has the much better ublock origin). Keep in mind that tons of website just outright won't work with Firefox mobile too, and it has a very annoying bug that has been known for years where all your tabs will…

Ah, could be. But I was not really referring to how good the browser is, but the extent to which I trust Samsung to protect my privacy. They are particularly greedy for your PII on their mobile phones. For instance, after I minimised permissions for my apps, the Samsung Gallery app suddenly popped an "Allow location data" dialog coming from Foursquare.

Edit:

Here's a video showing the Foursquare dialog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_e-P0hy5QY and also:

"For Korean phone giants Samsung and LG, Foursquare's API will be used in some of their default apps. If you take a picture using a Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+, the phone will tag your location based on Foursquare's Places database."

https://mashable.com/article/foursquare-asia-tencent-samsung

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