UnblockGA - Google Analytics Unblocker

We all know that majority of Adblockers today, block Google Analytics. Some by default and some by just enabling a setting. More than 10 million websites rely on Google Analytics to collect the analytical data of their users. One can imagine what would happen if it's blocked.

According to this post, these are some of the top blockers:

App / Extension	Platform	User Base (Dec 2015)	Blocks GA by default?
AdBlock Plus	Cross-platform	21M users (Firefox) 40M+ (Chrome) 300M total downloads	No, but easily added (one click post-install)
Adblock	primarily Chrome	40M+ (Chrome)	No, but easily added.
uBlock Origin	Cross-platform	630k users (Firefox) 2.5M users (Chrome)	Yes
Ghostery	Cross-platform	2.3M users (Chrome) 1.5M users (Firefox)	No, but easily added.
Purify	iOS	unknown, top 10 at launch*	Yes
Adblock Browser	Android	1-5M installs	Yes
Google Analytics Opt-Out	Chrome	720k users	Yes

UnblockGA offers a simple, easy-to-implement workaround against these adblockers.

Requirements

UnblockGA is built with vanilla JavaScript and PHP. So jQuery is not required to run UnblockGA. However, on the server side of the equation, minimum version of PHP required is 4.0.2 which supports the cURL library and it's functions. So basically, your server should be running PHP version 4.0.2 or higher.

Download

Download the files and place them like so:

webroot/
├── index.html
├── unblockga.min.js
└── unblockga.php

If you're using a MVC framework, and can't directly send request to a PHP script (without proper routing) use the scriptLocation option.

Usage

After downloading the two UnblockGA files, unblockga.js (or unblockga.min.js) and unblockga.php, follow these instructions:

• UnblockGA can be called with .load() function with appropriate argument, otherwise it won't work as expected.

• Place this JavaScript code anywhere on the webpage (you want to track):

  UnblockGA.load({
    trackingId: 'UA-XXXXXX-X'
  }); 

  Note: Replace UA-XXXXXX-X with your own Google Analytics Tracking ID.

• UnblockGA also supports some options. You might wanna check those out, to ensure proper working and enable logs.

Assuming you've put unblockga.min.js and unblockga.php in the same directory as your index.html or index.php.

Options

UnblockGA supports three options, which can be passed as arguments to the .load() function. These options are as follows:

Option	Description	Default Value
trackingId	Sets the Google Analytics Tracking ID.	none (throws a warning in console if logs are enabled)
logs	Option to enable/disable logs on the Developer Tools console.	boolean, false
scriptLocation	Set the location of the PHP script if it's placed elsewhere (other than the webroot). This is a vital option to consider if you're using a MVC framework like CakePHP or CodeIgniter.	string, unblockga.php

Examples

Using all the options:

UnblockGA.load({
  trackingId: 'UA-XXXXXX-X',
  logs: true,
  scriptLocation: 'includes/unblockga.php'
}); 

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2016 Preetesh Jain

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

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