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> I do wonder why you need CSS analytics rather than just using the server log from the request for the HTML file. From the article: Lots of automated traffic

> I do wonder why you need CSS analytics rather than just using the server log from the request for the HTML file. From the article: Lots of automated traffic on the web, bots, crawlers and scrapers. So if there is a way that can remove most of the automated traffic without loading any JS, is that a win? body:hover { background-image: url("https://underjord.io/you-was-tracked.png"); } [...] This has a certain elegance because it actually requires mouse interaction.

jiofih 6y ago
The vast majority of bots and scrapers today are headless browsers, so I’m not sure that would be very effective.
- chownie 6y ago
  I think that's the point, a headless browser is unlikely to trigger :hover behaviour.
  - hoistbypetard 6y ago
    > I think that's the point, a headless browser is unlikely to trigger :hover behaviour. That is not true. I just tried it with headless chrome and triggered :hover behavior immediately just by synthesizing mouse movement the same way I would by using it as a scraper.
    - gruez 6y ago
      I think his point is that the average scraper isn't going to bother simulating mouse movements to trigger the hover behavior.
      - hoistbypetard 6y ago
        Not specifically for that purpose, sure. I didn't simulate the mouse movements for that purpose. The hover triggered when I simulated scrolling and clicks the same way I do when I want to scrape sports stats from sites that hide them behind scroll movements or mouse clicks.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  It will at least filter all the bots that aren't trying to hide that they are bots, just trying very hard to understand your page. You can use it to clean your analytics, but yes, it's useless for fraud prevention.
  - hoistbypetard 6y ago
    It didn't filter out my bot which makes no real attempt to hide that it's a bot; all it does is scroll and click. Sure, it'd clean analytics up a little bit, but that would come at the expense of being able to use a CDN/cache for my CSS. Even leaving aside implementation effort, that's a big price to get some but not all bots out of my log data.

jiofih 6y ago

The vast majority of bots and scrapers today are headless browsers, so I’m not sure that would be very effective.

chownie 6y ago
I think that's the point, a headless browser is unlikely to trigger :hover behaviour.
- hoistbypetard 6y ago
  > I think that's the point, a headless browser is unlikely to trigger :hover behaviour. That is not true. I just tried it with headless chrome and triggered :hover behavior immediately just by synthesizing mouse movement the same way I would by using it as a scraper.
  - gruez 6y ago
    I think his point is that the average scraper isn't going to bother simulating mouse movements to trigger the hover behavior.
    - hoistbypetard 6y ago
      Not specifically for that purpose, sure. I didn't simulate the mouse movements for that purpose. The hover triggered when I simulated scrolling and clicks the same way I do when I want to scrape sports stats from sites that hide them behind scroll movements or mouse clicks.
marcosdumay 6y ago
It will at least filter all the bots that aren't trying to hide that they are bots, just trying very hard to understand your page. You can use it to clean your analytics, but yes, it's useless for fraud prevention.
- hoistbypetard 6y ago
  It didn't filter out my bot which makes no real attempt to hide that it's a bot; all it does is scroll and click. Sure, it'd clean analytics up a little bit, but that would come at the expense of being able to use a CDN/cache for my CSS. Even leaving aside implementation effort, that's a big price to get some but not all bots out of my log data.