I’ve decided to add some analytics to my site via the open-source analytics app Fathom. Previously, I used Matomo (formerly Piwik) to do analytics, but that was too heavyweight for my needs.
TL;DR: I only really care about browser details in aggregate, and what posts are popular, and respect Do Not Track.
Everything else? Don’t care, don’t track.
Here’s a brief description on my configuration and what I do and don’t (can’t and won’t) track.
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User IPs are anonymized
Although your IP address is logged by the webserver serving this site (inevitably), Fathom does not track IP addresses. Fathom does send a cookie, but it only contains a randomly-generated string, which expires 30 minutes after your visit.
Additionally, this entire site is served via Github Pages, so I don’t actually see any IP addresses and cannot even request to see IP addresses.
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If you’ve configured your browser to send Do Not Track, I respect that
Fathom respects Do Not Track, so will never send the relevant cookie.
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Page accesses are logged
Obviously, I do get info on what pages each visitor views, but I can’t and won’t correlate across visits. Correlation only occurs from within a session, and the cookie that Fathom uses to correlate page views expires 30 minutes after your last page view. But, as always, I can’t trace that back to an individual reader.
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I don’t geolocate visits
Fathom only aggregates visitor data, and so I have no idea where readers are from.
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Minimal JavaScript
Fathom needs a bit of JavaScript to work; again, Fathom is open source, and they don’t track or fingerprint users. If you’re paranoid and absolutely don’t want to get tracked, you can always block Fathom’s JavaScript (
https://cdn.usesfathom.com/tracker.js). My blog will still be readable without it.
If you have an adblocker installed, it’ll probably also block my blog’s JavaScript. Again, the JavaScript that I particularly use is for Fathom, so I don’t mind you using an adblocker.
If you have any questions about tracking on my blog, feel free to feel free to drop me an email.