5 ms·

Created this, cause I hated having to slow down my websites by adding the gigantic Google Tag Manager and Analytics libraries, combined with their randomly slow

Created this, cause I hated having to slow down my websites by adding the gigantic Google Tag Manager and Analytics libraries, combined with their randomly slow CDN, just to track some basic page views.

C1sc0cat 8y ago
Compared to all the other stuff that gets puts on websites these days most sites wont notice.
- spiderfarmer 8y ago
  You're getting downvoted, probably because your comment is whataboutery at best. You're only relevant when you asume someone with a 6Mb homepage is starting with replacing his Analytics code. A usecase that will probably never occur.
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    Ah you mean 99.99% of the real websites I consult on then - and those are all major brands.
jopsen 8y ago
I'm not an expert, just curious... But aren't these files cached on most users computers?
- niel 8y ago
  analytics.js as served by Google is only cached for two hours.
  - yayana 8y ago
    So a browser checks its hash up to 12 times a day for the surfer who never sleeps, no matter how many sites they visit.. If you are that concerned then your page views should be sent from the server side.
- jasonkester 8y ago
  Nothing is ever really cached anymore, meaningfully at least. We're in an age where websites happily serve up 8mb JavaScript bundles to display their static homepage to a mobile browser that has maybe a couple hundred MB allocated to caching things. Sure, it may be there if you immediately load another page on that site (and the devs aren't using a bundler that serves a different 8mb next time). But if they leave and come back, they'll get the same full download experience.
  - jefftk 8y ago
    For what it's worth, I run a/b tests in my work where I consistently see large caching effects. For example, when we compare an experimental version of something to the currently deployed version it's critical that we cache-bust the control group. And changes that improve caching generally make things significantly better. Caching effects are much smaller on Safari with its per-domain cache, but even there if something broke caching for us it would be a high priority to fix. (I work at Google on ad tags)
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    8mb JavaScript bundles to display their static homepage to a mobile browser that has maybe a couple hundred MB allocated to caching things Thanks for that. It explains why even on very high-end new phones, switching between complicated web sites in different tabs causes a reload.
- bzbarsky 8y ago
  It depends. Browsers that care about user privacy and tracking are moving to first-party-isolated caching. So GA will be cached for a user on your site only if the user has visited _your_ site before.
- onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
  AFAIK, GTM is specifically designed that it can only be cached on your website and it expires every 15 minutes. This is because your UAID is part of the URL to download the GTM snippit. The old-school analytics.js file can be cached, though. Someone correct me if this isn't true.
onion2k 8y ago
Both of Google's recommended methods of adding Analytics to a website load Google's JS library asynchronously[1]. Including it has no meaningful impact a site's time to first paint or interactivity. There's a good argument to say loading 70Kb of JS you're not using is a bad idea, and if that's the case then your smaller script is an improvement, but there's also a good argument to say Google Analytics is powerful and useful and maybe you should be using the features that those 70Kb give you in order to improve you site in ways the user would notice. I guess it's down to your specific use case. [1] https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/ https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...
- awirth 8y ago
  <script async> does still block the document onload event from firing until it's been executed.
  - scratchnsniff 8y ago
    What about defer?
- dwild 8y ago
  Wouldn't the 70kb would be most likely already cached too? Which make it even more lightweight than this minimal script.
  - dorgo 8y ago
    My firefox never cache anything. Going forth and back in history always reloads the page. That's the reason I have many tabs open - to prevent reloading and waiting. about.cache says: Number of entries: 418 Maximum storage size: 30720 KiB Storage in use: 12698 KiB Storage disk location: none, only stored in memory
  - tuananh 8y ago
    no because expiration of google analytics is really low (30m or 2h i think)

C1sc0cat 8y ago

Compared to all the other stuff that gets puts on websites these days most sites wont notice.

spiderfarmer 8y ago
You're getting downvoted, probably because your comment is whataboutery at best. You're only relevant when you asume someone with a 6Mb homepage is starting with replacing his Analytics code. A usecase that will probably never occur.
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Ah you mean 99.99% of the real websites I consult on then - and those are all major brands.

jopsen 8y ago

I'm not an expert, just curious... But aren't these files cached on most users computers?

niel 8y ago
analytics.js as served by Google is only cached for two hours.
- yayana 8y ago
  So a browser checks its hash up to 12 times a day for the surfer who never sleeps, no matter how many sites they visit.. If you are that concerned then your page views should be sent from the server side.
jasonkester 8y ago
Nothing is ever really cached anymore, meaningfully at least. We're in an age where websites happily serve up 8mb JavaScript bundles to display their static homepage to a mobile browser that has maybe a couple hundred MB allocated to caching things. Sure, it may be there if you immediately load another page on that site (and the devs aren't using a bundler that serves a different 8mb next time). But if they leave and come back, they'll get the same full download experience.
- jefftk 8y ago
  For what it's worth, I run a/b tests in my work where I consistently see large caching effects. For example, when we compare an experimental version of something to the currently deployed version it's critical that we cache-bust the control group. And changes that improve caching generally make things significantly better. Caching effects are much smaller on Safari with its per-domain cache, but even there if something broke caching for us it would be a high priority to fix. (I work at Google on ad tags)
- reaperducer 8y ago
  8mb JavaScript bundles to display their static homepage to a mobile browser that has maybe a couple hundred MB allocated to caching things Thanks for that. It explains why even on very high-end new phones, switching between complicated web sites in different tabs causes a reload.
bzbarsky 8y ago
It depends. Browsers that care about user privacy and tracking are moving to first-party-isolated caching. So GA will be cached for a user on your site only if the user has visited _your_ site before.
onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
AFAIK, GTM is specifically designed that it can only be cached on your website and it expires every 15 minutes. This is because your UAID is part of the URL to download the GTM snippit. The old-school analytics.js file can be cached, though. Someone correct me if this isn't true.

onion2k 8y ago

Both of Google's recommended methods of adding Analytics to a website load Google's JS library asynchronously[1]. Including it has no meaningful impact a site's time to first paint or interactivity. There's a good argument to say loading 70Kb of JS you're not using is a bad idea, and if that's the case then your smaller script is an improvement, but there's also a good argument to say Google Analytics is powerful and useful and maybe you should be using the features that those 70Kb give you in order to improve you site in ways the user would notice. I guess it's down to your specific use case. [1] https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/ https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...

awirth 8y ago
<script async> does still block the document onload event from firing until it's been executed.
- scratchnsniff 8y ago
  What about defer?
dwild 8y ago
Wouldn't the 70kb would be most likely already cached too? Which make it even more lightweight than this minimal script.
- dorgo 8y ago
  My firefox never cache anything. Going forth and back in history always reloads the page. That's the reason I have many tabs open - to prevent reloading and waiting. about.cache says: Number of entries: 418 Maximum storage size: 30720 KiB Storage in use: 12698 KiB Storage disk location: none, only stored in memory
- tuananh 8y ago
  no because expiration of google analytics is really low (30m or 2h i think)