Many websites use Google Analytics to track their traffic and optimize websites based on it. It is for instance possible to monitor traffic trends, watch how keywords and ad campaigns perform and which hardware and software the users use to connect to the site.
Google Analytics is implemented with JavaScript on the webmaster’s site so that it can track the traffic. The traffic tracking service has come under criticism lately in some countries as it gives Google theoretically access to the data.
Advanced users who want to opt out of Google Analytics are able to do so by installing an ad-blocking or script-blocking program in their browsers. NoScript for Firefox is for instance such an add-on that can block the Google Analytics script.
Other options include blocking certain Google servers on the local system.
Google has created a Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on that can also be used to block the script so that the traffic is not tracked by it.
The browser add-on is available for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and IE8, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and higher.
To provide website visitors with more choice about how their data is collected by Google Analytics, we have developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.
The add-on sends the opt-out notification to the Google Analytics script so that the information are not recorded. That is not as effective as blocking the script completely on the other hand.
NoScript for instance has the additional benefit that the script will not be loaded and executed at all which reduces the page loading time of websites that use Google Analytics.
Users who want to install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on can download it from the official Google Tools page. It is compatible with recent versions of all modern browsers including Firefox, Internet Explorer (8-11 currently), Google Chrome, Safari and Opera.