5 ms·

I use Matomo for years now and it works quite reliably. (A few updates failed the automatic update, but nothing serious) Only thing that bothered me is that mo

by l1am0 6y ago

I use Matomo for years now and it works quite reliably. (A few updates failed the automatic update, but nothing serious) Only thing that bothered me is that most Ad Blockers are blocking Matomo as well. I did build a little Script to circumvent that, you might find it handy as well: https://gumroad.com/l/matomo_circumvent_adblock https://gumroad.com/l/matomo_circumvent_adblock I use it on my website. Check if your ad blocker is capable of blocking it: https://simon-frey.com https://simon-frey.com

lightswitch05 6y ago
Its pretty disgusting to track people against their consent, even more so to circumvent their protections against tracking. I added your domain to my blocklist: https://github.com/lightswitch05/hosts/commit/bb2cd77c9ec02824be0604099b217e422395162d#diff-97fcc9e7f471368140c9d4c8b58cca4167163c807c7261f03f26d1dd23d064d1R265850 https://github.com/lightswitch05/hosts/commit/bb2cd77c9ec028...
- vntok 6y ago
  It's pretty disgusting to access creators' content for free while blocking their attempts to monetize it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - necovek 6y ago
    Why not block access to the content then? You can't watch Netflix streams without paying for them, that's trivial to implement. Ah, right, creators want their content to show up for my search keywords, Google won't let them have pages only visible to Google bots (though even that is changing with the rise of paywalled sites), and they want the money from that same Google showing ads from their ad network. Google initially promised to deliver a search for the open web unencumbered. It has become a sort of paywall itself (accept our ads or our search results will be useless pointing you to pages that only work if you have ads enabled). Sure, it would be fair if they haven't pushed out the competition acting entirely differently ("we have no ads", "our ads are clearly marked" to current "see if you can tell a difference between an ad and your search results").
- samjmck 6y ago
  Ad blocking != block tracking. If you don’t want to get tracked, turn on Do Not Track in your browser. Matomo and most other privacy focused analytics scripts respect that setting.
  - lightswitch05 6y ago
    While I agree that is the proper solution, most analytics do not respect the Do Not Track header. Beyond it being mostly ignored, Safari (which currently has 20% global browser share) removed support for Do Not Track in 12.1. So even though Matomo might respect the header request, there is no way for me to send that header on many of my devices. Blocking is the only solution left to me to 'opt out' of tracking regardless of the good intentions of Matomo.
  - l1am0 6y ago
    +1 I set Matomo to respect Do Not Track and you can opt out of the Tracking in my Privacy Settings
  - dastx 6y ago
    Sure, so I have tracking protection too both through uBlock Origin, and Firefox' tracking protection feature. Yet, here you are, bypassing my tracking protections.
    - samjmck 6y ago
      If you're using Firefox tracking protection (which I'm guessing using DNT as well), then Matomo by default does not track you though. So no, your tracking protections aren't being bypassed.
  - arp242 6y ago
    Do-Not-Track is pointless and dead. Pretty much none of the trackers that actually matter pay one iota of attention to it.
- aorth 6y ago
  It's your call really, but a website owner tracking you with their own software on their own Matomo instance is not the problem. This is essentially the same as monitoring website logs... that's not disgusting at all.
  - lightswitch05 6y ago
    I think grouping server-side tracking with JavaScript based tracking is an oversimplification. JavaScript tracking is much more invasive and can access significantly more data. From something as straightforward as fingerprinting to potentially even more invasive data such as geo-location, battery status, webcam, microphone - you name it. Server access logs aren't going to track my eyes. I think we can all agree there are different levels of acceptable tracking and use of that data- but the degrees of acceptance are going to be different depending on the user and service. I don't consider bypassing my restrictions to run unauthorized code to be an acceptable tracking method and raises serious concerns about how the data will then be used.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      OTOH JavaScript tracking is an easy way to filter out a lot of the bots. I use a little bit of JS-based tracking for exactly this reason, but I'm not extracting anything that wouldn't show up in server logs (eventually I also want to get some "time spent on page" metric so I have some idea how useful my blog posts are (are people clicking and leaving right away or are they sticking around to read). You pretty need JS for this. In whatever case, web analytics like these aren't "tracking"; you're looking at user behavior on your own site; not trying to follow them around the Internet or otherwise identify them.
    - arp242 6y ago
      Anyone can do all sorts of things. I can punch anyone I see on the street in the face. Doesn't mean they're actually doing it. Now, I have a vested interest in this as I work on one of those tracking tools, but it actually collects less data than those Apache access_logs that people have been keeping for 25 years. Plus, the JS is unminified and easily examinable if you want (as is the HTTP request), so you also have more insight in what is being collected exactly. "It's using JavaScript" and "it can do [..]" are massive red herrings; browsers are actually fairly sandboxed and there are millions upon millions of lines of code on your computer that can do much more than JavaScript inside a webpage.
vntok 6y ago
Unfortunately your script still calls a third party domain, which is trivial to block using a generic AdBlock/uBlock rule. Instead, you should host the matomo script (under a different filename of course) on your own domain. That way it won't be as easily blocked. I go as far as to send all the tracking parameters through a custom server script before they are proxied to GA and Matomo. That way, I can change the script and parameter names at will, making them much more difficult to block. For example, Matomo-related blocking rules are as follows: /matomo-tracking. /matomo.js$domain=~github.com /matomo.php /matomo/$domain=~github.com|~matomo.org|~wordpress.org /piwik-$domain=~github.com|~matomo.org|~piwik.org|~piwik.pro|piwikpro.de /piwik.$image,script,domain=~matomo.org|~piwik.org|~piwik.pro|piwikpro.de /piwik./ping? /piwik.js /piwik.php /piwik/*$domain=~github.com|~matomo.org|~piwik.org|~piwik.pro /piwik1. /piwik2.js /piwik_ /piwikapi.js /piwikC_ /piwikTracker.
- l1am0 6y ago
  If someone decides to explicit block my Matomo tracking server I am fine with that. I experimented with tracking on the same site and the overhead is not worth it for me. Central solution for all my projects works quite reliable
  - vntok 6y ago
    Sure if someone explicitely blocks you and you alone, that's fine. The problem is you getting blocked generically, because you're using the same scripts or patterns as everyone else, such that there exists a very wide and generic block rule in uBlock Origin or some other filter that happens to apply to your own domain. That's unacceptable and worth fighting against.
    - l1am0 6y ago
      But that is exactly what the script is doing. It changes the structure to prevent generally being blocked
      - vntok 6y ago
huhtenberg 6y ago
Unless I am missing something, that's trivial to block. Any tracker can be made to work around ad blockers by making callbacks to the site itself and having a small shim there that forwards these pingbacks to the actual tracking service. But even then they still can be blocked based on the request contents. PS. Here's how your website looks in Firefox - https://i.imgur.com/uFKEB4X.jpg https://i.imgur.com/uFKEB4X.jpg. That's with uBlock off. No console errors.
- l1am0 6y ago
  Weird that you don't see any text. In FF on Linux it works as expected. What system are you on?
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    Windows
l1am0 6y ago
FYI: The gumroad link is to a support license. You purchase a support license to help me to continue working on MCAB. MCAB itself is Open Source and can be found on Github: https://github.com/simonfrey/matomo_circumvent_adblock https://github.com/simonfrey/matomo_circumvent_adblock

by l1am0 6y ago

lightswitch05 6y ago

Its pretty disgusting to track people against their consent, even more so to circumvent their protections against tracking. I added your domain to my blocklist: https://github.com/lightswitch05/hosts/commit/bb2cd77c9ec02824be0604099b217e422395162d#diff-97fcc9e7f471368140c9d4c8b58cca4167163c807c7261f03f26d1dd23d064d1R265850 https://github.com/lightswitch05/hosts/commit/bb2cd77c9ec028...

vntok 6y ago
It's pretty disgusting to access creators' content for free while blocking their attempts to monetize it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- necovek 6y ago
  Why not block access to the content then? You can't watch Netflix streams without paying for them, that's trivial to implement. Ah, right, creators want their content to show up for my search keywords, Google won't let them have pages only visible to Google bots (though even that is changing with the rise of paywalled sites), and they want the money from that same Google showing ads from their ad network. Google initially promised to deliver a search for the open web unencumbered. It has become a sort of paywall itself (accept our ads or our search results will be useless pointing you to pages that only work if you have ads enabled). Sure, it would be fair if they haven't pushed out the competition acting entirely differently ("we have no ads", "our ads are clearly marked" to current "see if you can tell a difference between an ad and your search results").
samjmck 6y ago
Ad blocking != block tracking. If you don’t want to get tracked, turn on Do Not Track in your browser. Matomo and most other privacy focused analytics scripts respect that setting.
- lightswitch05 6y ago
  While I agree that is the proper solution, most analytics do not respect the Do Not Track header. Beyond it being mostly ignored, Safari (which currently has 20% global browser share) removed support for Do Not Track in 12.1. So even though Matomo might respect the header request, there is no way for me to send that header on many of my devices. Blocking is the only solution left to me to 'opt out' of tracking regardless of the good intentions of Matomo.
- l1am0 6y ago
  +1 I set Matomo to respect Do Not Track and you can opt out of the Tracking in my Privacy Settings
- dastx 6y ago
  Sure, so I have tracking protection too both through uBlock Origin, and Firefox' tracking protection feature. Yet, here you are, bypassing my tracking protections.
  - samjmck 6y ago
    If you're using Firefox tracking protection (which I'm guessing using DNT as well), then Matomo by default does not track you though. So no, your tracking protections aren't being bypassed.
- arp242 6y ago
  Do-Not-Track is pointless and dead. Pretty much none of the trackers that actually matter pay one iota of attention to it.
aorth 6y ago
It's your call really, but a website owner tracking you with their own software on their own Matomo instance is not the problem. This is essentially the same as monitoring website logs... that's not disgusting at all.
- lightswitch05 6y ago
  I think grouping server-side tracking with JavaScript based tracking is an oversimplification. JavaScript tracking is much more invasive and can access significantly more data. From something as straightforward as fingerprinting to potentially even more invasive data such as geo-location, battery status, webcam, microphone - you name it. Server access logs aren't going to track my eyes. I think we can all agree there are different levels of acceptable tracking and use of that data- but the degrees of acceptance are going to be different depending on the user and service. I don't consider bypassing my restrictions to run unauthorized code to be an acceptable tracking method and raises serious concerns about how the data will then be used.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    OTOH JavaScript tracking is an easy way to filter out a lot of the bots. I use a little bit of JS-based tracking for exactly this reason, but I'm not extracting anything that wouldn't show up in server logs (eventually I also want to get some "time spent on page" metric so I have some idea how useful my blog posts are (are people clicking and leaving right away or are they sticking around to read). You pretty need JS for this. In whatever case, web analytics like these aren't "tracking"; you're looking at user behavior on your own site; not trying to follow them around the Internet or otherwise identify them.
  - arp242 6y ago
    Anyone can do all sorts of things. I can punch anyone I see on the street in the face. Doesn't mean they're actually doing it. Now, I have a vested interest in this as I work on one of those tracking tools, but it actually collects less data than those Apache access_logs that people have been keeping for 25 years. Plus, the JS is unminified and easily examinable if you want (as is the HTTP request), so you also have more insight in what is being collected exactly. "It's using JavaScript" and "it can do [..]" are massive red herrings; browsers are actually fairly sandboxed and there are millions upon millions of lines of code on your computer that can do much more than JavaScript inside a webpage.

vntok 6y ago

Unfortunately your script still calls a third party domain, which is trivial to block using a generic AdBlock/uBlock rule. Instead, you should host the matomo script (under a different filename of course) on your own domain. That way it won't be as easily blocked. I go as far as to send all the tracking parameters through a custom server script before they are proxied to GA and Matomo. That way, I can change the script and parameter names at will, making them much more difficult to block. For example, Matomo-related blocking rules are as follows: /matomo-tracking. /matomo.js$domain=~github.com /matomo.php /matomo/$domain=~github.com|~matomo.org|~wordpress.org /piwik-$domain=~github.com|~matomo.org|~piwik.org|~piwik.pro|piwikpro.de /piwik.$image,script,domain=~matomo.org|~piwik.org|~piwik.pro|piwikpro.de /piwik./ping? /piwik.js /piwik.php /piwik/*$domain=~github.com|~matomo.org|~piwik.org|~piwik.pro /piwik1. /piwik2.js /piwik_ /piwikapi.js /piwikC_ /piwikTracker.

l1am0 6y ago
If someone decides to explicit block my Matomo tracking server I am fine with that. I experimented with tracking on the same site and the overhead is not worth it for me. Central solution for all my projects works quite reliable
- vntok 6y ago
  Sure if someone explicitely blocks you and you alone, that's fine. The problem is you getting blocked generically, because you're using the same scripts or patterns as everyone else, such that there exists a very wide and generic block rule in uBlock Origin or some other filter that happens to apply to your own domain. That's unacceptable and worth fighting against.
  - l1am0 6y ago
    But that is exactly what the script is doing. It changes the structure to prevent generally being blocked
    - vntok 6y ago

huhtenberg 6y ago

Unless I am missing something, that's trivial to block. Any tracker can be made to work around ad blockers by making callbacks to the site itself and having a small shim there that forwards these pingbacks to the actual tracking service. But even then they still can be blocked based on the request contents. PS. Here's how your website looks in Firefox - https://i.imgur.com/uFKEB4X.jpg https://i.imgur.com/uFKEB4X.jpg. That's with uBlock off. No console errors.

l1am0 6y ago
Weird that you don't see any text. In FF on Linux it works as expected. What system are you on?
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  Windows

l1am0 6y ago

FYI: The gumroad link is to a support license. You purchase a support license to help me to continue working on MCAB. MCAB itself is Open Source and can be found on Github: https://github.com/simonfrey/matomo_circumvent_adblock https://github.com/simonfrey/matomo_circumvent_adblock