Why Does google-analytics.com come up when I refresh FR page?

Me

[WHATNEXT?]

I downloaded Adobe Flash Player after Googling it.

[WHATNEXT?]

I downloaded Adobe Flash Player afer Googling it. I have noticed when I refresh a FR page, on the bottom it says waiting for FR (normal thing) and then it says waiting for www.google-analytics.com. So, did I download a tricky version that let's Google track all by FR (and maybe everything else) viewing?

If so what can I do? I've always had problems when I have to load an update of Adobe anything when using Firefox. The last time a very kind Freeper, Doctor Bull Dog, gave me step by step instructions and it worked. This time the directions on Adobe seemed different. I had also just downloaded Firefox 4.

Please speak C O M P U T E R I Z E V E R Y S L O W L Y. Step by step. Any help would be appreciated.

[RC51]

This is nothing nefarious. Lots of sites use Google Analytics to look at aggregate data about their users browsing experience. It helps the administrators of Free Republic answer questions like:
What percentage of Freepers use IE vs Firefox.
What percentage of Freepers have javascript enabled.
What was the most popular topic yesterday, this week, last year (including lurkers who didn’t post).
What pages are producing errors.
etc.

If this still creeps you out then you can block google analytics from all sites that use it by using FireFox browser with the “adblock plugin” and site-block www.google-analytics.com/*

[Moose Burger]

It has nothing to do with Adobe Flash Player. It’s on the source code of the Free Republic page, that doesn’t change when you install something on your computer, and most certainly was put in there intentionally.

[Red_Devil 232]

Do you have the Addon Ghostery installed on FF-4?

[smokingfrog]

Urchin has become one of the more popular solutions for website traffic analysis, particularly with ISPs and web hosting providers.

[humblegunner]

It’s coming from the Blogger’s forum.

Those dang blogs are bleeding nefarious infectious diseases all over the place.

[Drango]

S o w h a t? Google Analytics isn’t a bad thing. Webmasters use it for a thousand reasons and it doesn’t tell much about you. I t d o e s s a y w h i c h s i t e y o u c a m e f r o m a n d w h i c h s i t e y o u l e a v e t o.

[Salamander]

I use it.
It’s not only harmless, it’s working to make *your* FR experience better.

By examining your stats, you can find out what pages are ‘taking too long to load’, aren’t working at all, where/why people are ‘abandoning’ your site, etc.

It’s a good tool for webmasters who want to make their vistors’ experience as good and useful as possible.

[troy McClure]

I use it for both of my webstores.

We like to see how may hits and what they are seaching for.

[troy McClure]

I use it for both of my webstores.

We like to see how may hits and what they are seaching for.

[troy McClure]

I use it for both of my webstores.

We like to see how may hits and what they are searching for.

[Salamander]

We use it on all of our business sites.
[posted only once for brevity’s sake].....;D

Sometimes I check the keywords they’re searching for and they have virtually *nothing* to do with our sites.

I always wonder what on earth was going through people’s minds and *why* they were searching for things *so* bizarre yet somehow landed on *us*.

[Delta 21]

Someone out there is tracking every click that every person at every computer makes.

Scary, huh?

[WHATNEXT?]

Ahhhh....I feel much better. Although I don’t like anybody tracking what I do :^(

If Freepers tell me it’s O.K. then it’s O.K.

Bye the way, did Adobe change the download process for Firefox users and make it the same as I.E.?

[GoMonster]

you probably need to refresh your browser cookies. Or someone from the Grassy Noles!!!!! lol

[Paraclete]

Download IE9 and block tracking.

[Republic]

I come to FR from startpage.com which is not supposed to track ISP address.

[snowsislander]

I come to FR from startpage.com which is not supposed to track ISP address.

You are correct that startpage.com does not track your IP address, and from what I can see by casually looking at its communications, it isn't overtly using google-analytics.com in the manner that Free Republic does.

However, simply using startpage.com to get to Free Republic isn't going to have any tangible effect on the tracking that google-analytics.com is doing. All it does mean is that google-analytics.com won't have access to your visits to the startpage.com website.

You can manually block the google-analytics.com tracking by adding the following line to your hosts file:

    127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com

This will block all DNS-resolution based communications with www.google-analytics.com. (If they were to start using raw IP numbers instead of the DNS name www.google-analytics.com or if they were to change DNS names, then this line wouldn't be of any use.)

There's a pretty good collection of undesirable DNS names at the MVPS site. It seems to be kept up on a reasonably timely basis; the date in the latest version indicates it was updated on March 30th.

[Paraclete]

Tunnelling to a different ip and blocking tracking cookies are two different things. Your ISP can’t track you, but servers on the other end still can.

[Republic]

Really? So if thru startpage I go to any website, that website admin can track back to my IP? We have norton, comodo firewall, and adv care. Not good?