What is google-analytics.com and why is it slowing down my Fluther?

Google analytics is a service that Google provides so that people running websites can keep track of what pages get hit more often and what pages are most popular. Marketing research and ad numbers, all in one.

Right, but is that something that Google managed to upload to my computer, or is it something the Fluther administrators implemented?

It is a few lines of Javascript on Fluther that sends some info to Google’s server. It is completely harmless. Except for Google’s servers being slow sometimes. I see the same thing happen on other sites too.

And I use Google Analytics on my site. It really is harmless… And if you view the source this is the code responsible.

<script src=“http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js” type=“text/javascript”>
</script>

<script type=“text/javascript”>
_uacct = “UA-924516–1”;
urchinTracker();
HOST_NAME = “http://www.fluther.com”;
</script>

Fluther includes code in their webpages that Google uses to track your web activities. In theory, Google only tracks your activities on Fluther’s site, and only reports that information to Fluther. Do you trust Fluther? Do you trust Google?

(I often browse with Firefox’s NoScript extension turned on, myself.)

People who run websites benefit greatly from knowing how their site is being used. In turn, that benefits users (if the site owners use the information to improve the site, as Ben & Andrew surely do). It does suck, though, that it can slow down page loads. Same thing happens sometimes with Google Maps that are embedded on a site.

A lot of sites you visit use Google Analytics, as it’s an extremely popular service. However, you might want to turn it off because, well, it slows down pageloads and because Google can follow you most anywhere.
I’ve disabled Analytics using the CustomizeGoogle Firefox extension, just as I’ve disabled ads (with Adblock Plus, but CG can remove Google Ads) for the same reasons.

Thanks!

You can block it using Vincent’s methods, or you can block google-analytics.com in your HOSTS file.

Check this out for more information about that.