The official browser extension for Clicky is here
Today we're releasing the Clicky browser extension for both Chrome and Firefox. (Firefox is still pending as I write this, but that link will start working as soon as it's approved).
With this extension, your Clicky traffic data is always just a click away. The extension will also ensure your own visits to your own websites never get logged (properly this time, more on that below). And for those of you who don't run a site on Clicky, it lets you opt out of Clicky tracking globally.
For site owners: Analytics at a glance
Click the extension icon in your toolbar to open a small popup with the analytics for that site: visitors, goals, content, etc (screenshot above). Just paste in your user API key (find yours here), and that's the entire setup.
While you're on one of your own websites, the icon will show how many visitors are on that site right now, and clicking it will open right to that site's dashboard, rather than your site list.
We can't fit everything in here, so that's why every report has a "view on Clicky" link at the bottom. This link will take you to the same report and same date range on clicky.com for a deeper dive. (Example: if you're viewing "recent visitors" for the "last 7 days" in the extension, then that link will take you directly to the visitors report on Clicky for the same 7-day date range).
For site owners: Reliable on-site analytics and blocking
Once you've logged in to the extension, your tracking beacons for your own websites get modified on the fly. They still hit our tracking servers, as this is necessary to power on-site analytics and heatmaps, but the pageview won't be logged no matter what, even with proxy tracking!
Look, after 20 years, it's mildly exciting to have an official solution that doesn't involve cookies. Even in the glory days, before everyone was obsessed with privacy, cookies have always been per browser, per device (phone chrome, phone firefox, laptop chrome, laptop firefox, etc), and could expire and/or be deleted in all sorts of unknown ways. It was just good enough for government work for quite a while, but no longer.
Long term, we plan plan to integrate heatmaps into this extension and some other features, at which point the on-site widget may get the axe as it won't be necessary any more... but that's not finalized, nor would it happen soon.
There are two settings so you can dial it exactly how you want:
- Ignore my visits to my own websites: on by default when logged in. Turn it off when you're testing goals or campaigns and want to appear in your own analytics. (You may need to use a private window as well, to ensure that third party cookies don't interfere, if they happen to be working for you).
- Ignore my visits to all sites running Clicky: mostly useful if you want the opt-out behavior below and manage your own sites from the same browser. Note, these are hard blocks on the beacons, so they won't hit our servers.
For everyone else: a real opt-out
We've had an opt-out page for ages, but it also used cookies so it had the same problems mentioned above. But an extension that prevents the requests from ever leaving your browser doesn't have those problems.
So by default the extension will block all Clicky tracking from your browser immediately, no account or login involved. If that's all you want it for, just install it and you're done. (But if you ever login, the default blocking changes, so we do encourage you to double check the settings page).
To be clear, this isn't an ad-blocker or "general" privacy software. It only blocks Clicky.
Install it, tell us what you think, and let us know what you'd want in the popup next!