I can confirm. The widget and the statistics view is not shown since the last update. My AdBlocker blocks the admin script. Which is weird. I use uBlock Origin.
Plugin Support
Lap
(@lapzor)
We’ve been asking these same questions (why would they block our scripts we don’t serve any ads and we respect privacy). We’ve put in requests to at least not block the whole koko folder, so that the admin part still works even if they really want to block the tracking script.
We could of course start a “cat and mouse” with adblockers, trying to evade their blockers, but really I think Koko, especially the admin part of koko, should not be blocked in the first place and we hope the adblocker in question will resolve this problem.
This is because of this recent change in the EasyList Privacy list, which a lot of ad-blockers depend upon.
This change blocks not only our tracking script, but also the JavaScript file for our dashboard. I’ve been in touch with the EasyList authors multiple times as Koko Analytics should probably not even be on this list (given it doesn’t track anything visitor specific, only aggregate counts) but they keep on introducing blocks like this because they shoot with hail at anything that reeks of analytics / tracking.
I’m going to be opening up another pull request that asks them to undo this change, but the best solution is probably to simply accept that any tracking will be blocked by EasyList at some point and you will have to whitelist your own website in your ad-blocker settings for the dashboard to work.
I just posted the comment below on the other thread about this issue:
—
Hello everyone,
Just wanted to chime in here that EasyList recently made a change that blocks all JavaScript files in our plugin from being loaded if you’re using an ad-blocker that depends on these lists internally. You can see the change here: https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/e995f66b6ac49603897a8947176c798dbe00b7c0
I’ve already been in contact with the EasyList maintainers on multiple occassions (here, here, here) to have this resolved, but they keep shooting with hail at anything that reeks of analytics.
I’m once again trying to work with them to have them block ONLY the tracking script and data collection endpoint (see this pull request) but I can’t guarantee they will implement this change. It’s just so much easier for them to be aggressive, block everything looking like our plugin and be done with it.
And yes, one could argue that Koko Analytics should not even be on this list because the plugin only tracks aggregated counts and nothing visitor specific, but this is a nuance that ad-blocker maintainers generally do not care about.
We’ll also be looking at other ways to at least get admin dashboards working properly no matter what ad-blocker is being used, but the best long-term solution is to whitelist your own websites in your ad-blocker settings.
I hope that clarifies. If not, let us know!
Why would an adblocker block your tracking script? Is it connecting to some advertisement? What are you trying to accomplish with this script and what information is transferred?
@bistromatic
Just to reply to this section as well: it’s easier for ad-blocker filter list maintainers to be aggressive then it is to check every single “analytics” software product that exists and then determine whether it is privacy friendly. They block everything that reeks of analytics.
I agree that Koko Analytics should probably not be on such a list. Rest assured, with Koko Analytics, the following is true:
- Only aggregate counts are tracked. Nothing visitor specific.
- The data lives on your server only. It is not sent to the outside world nor is it shared with anyone. Even us as the plugin developers have no access to it.
- In case of a data breach, all one would see would be a list of counts. You can take a look at the database tables prefixed with wp_koko_analytics to see this for yourself. It is simply a table with dates, post ID’s and the number of pageviews and visitors respectively. Not super useful for a hacker, eh?
I’m using uBlock Origin as well and have the following line in My filters:
@@||*/koko-analytics*
so it doesn’t block either or backend features on any site.
@josklever That’s a clever trick, thanks for sharing! We’ll be keeping a note on that.
@josklever thanks for the filter! Works like a charm!
