Prograils doesn't track you anymore
Prograils is giving a damn about you. This is why we don’t let Google, Facebook, or any other company track you online and collect your personal information while you’re scrolling through our website.
The bad news is that you are being tracked online. It doesn’t come as a surprise? It’s still worth reminding yourself of that nonetheless.
Table of content
- Finding a Google Analytics alternative
- Plausible Analytics vs. Google Analytics
- Off with GTM, Hotjar, Disqus and others
- Session cookies only
- Privacy and cookie policy
- Endnote: Prograils doesn’t collect your personal data
Do you consider yourself tech-savvy, or at least take your online privacy seriously? Kudos. Millions of people still have no problem with accepting all cookies on whatever website they visit and feeding the internet with their personal information for free. Even after Cambridge Analytica and other data breaches.
Prograils values your privacy too. This is why we deleted all the trackers from the Prograils website.
Let us tell you how we did it.
Finding a Google Analytics alternative
Prograils doesn’t use Google Analytics.
Looks sketchy? Suicidal? Let us explain.
Google Analytics tracks user behavior. Its connection with the Google search engine is more than obvious. Google thrives on data. The more data you feed it for free, the more accurately it will be able to target you with the ads it gets paid for.
It is not OK, is it?
On the other hand, we still want our website to be visible online and attract customers. For years, Google Analytics seemed like a natural tool to measure how many visitors we get per month, how much time people spend on which page, where we get the traffic from, and what blog articles are the most popular.
We took it for granted as a default tool to check if our marketing works. And, yes, kinda turned a blind eye to the downsides.
This had to change.
Firstly, because we are not intruders. We are website visitors and citizens ourselves and don’t feel well when tech giants know too much about us.
Secondly, our awareness grew significantly when Prograils became an ISO 270001-certified company for information security. If you declare your software to be privacy-friendly, it seems logical not to invade the privacy of your visitors.
Plausible Analytics vs. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a third-party tool that relies on various types of cookies, including tracking cookies.
Its tracking code can be injected into a website’s source code by yet another Google-owned tool, called Google Tag Manager, or directly.
To be honest, it collects loads of information about you most businesses don’t know what to do with, in the first place. They may not know, but Google collects it anyway and may sell them whenever it fancies.
More and more tech-savvy, or just damn-giving, websites tend to block Google Analytics nowadays.
This is why we also banned it and chose a lightweight alternative.
Plausible Analytics is an independent, first-party connection, built and promoted by two guys who believe that our online privacy deserves better than being accumulated and sold by a corporate giant.
Instead of cookies installed on a user’s device, it uses anonymous identifiers which makes its reports more accurate than those of Google.
Plausible Analytics is also much easier to use and more readable. We don’t spend longer than 10 minutes daily to get what we need out of it.
Looks like a win-win situation for everybody (‘cept Google Analytics), doesn’t it?
Off with GTM, Hotjar, Disqus and others
Being privacy-friendly means much more than ditching Google Analytics. Many smaller companies collect information about your online behavior.
For the same reasons we detailed in the paragraph above, we don’t use Hotjar anymore. Yes, heatmaps were extremely useful, but at the cost of someone’s privacy. Like Google Analytics, Hotjar had its tracker stored by Google Tag Manager plugged into the Prograils website. The latter is also gone now.
How will we check the hottest areas of our website in the future? Perhaps we will have to conduct one-on-one interviews with users, and that’s fine.
The same goes for Disqus, which is why you are not able to comment on our blogs right now. We plan to launch our custom comment section someday in 2022.
Oh, and the Web Fonts we used on the Prograils website. It was impossible to not use their tracking script, so we purchased the original fonts under the Pay Once license, tracker-free.
Session cookies only
OK, we are done with all the third-party trackers, but how about the website itself?
The Prograils website engine uses session cookies only. It gives us an insight into the number of impressions in the blog section. We use it additionally to the Plausible Analytics stats.
Session cookies are deleted once you leave the website.
Besides that, session cookies are here to make the website perform its essential functions, like keeping the admins logged in or remembering that you accepted our cookie and privacy policy.
They are the next talking points.
Privacy and cookie policy
Up till mid-2020, the cookie and privacy policy of our website were generated by Iubenda.
Being a third-party integration it was bound to be deleted.
The only way to be tracker-free and GDPR-compliant was to write the cookie and privacy policies ourselves. Legal counsels consulted their content with us, making sure it is in line with international regulations.
The most important notion of the Prograils cookie policy is the one about the type of cookies we use:
“When you visit the website we may store first-party session cookies on your device. Session cookies are temporary cookies that are deleted once you end your session (e.g. when you log off or close the browser). Session cookies are used to recognize your activities across the website.”
No other cookies are stored on your smart-/iPhone or computer because of Prograils.
Read our cookie and privacy policy.
Limiting Facebook’s access to your personal information
We sometimes run ad campaigns on Facebook or LinkedIn. These are mainly focused on employer branding and attracting new hires. We are, however, gradually moving on towards new ways of spreading the word about Prograils, be it specialist recruitment portals or outdoor campaigns.
Either way, we have never installed the Facebook Pixel on the Prograils website. Probably because we were too lazy. The ever-reappearing Facebook data breaches assure us that there is nothing to regret.
So no, Facebook Pixel was never a thing at Prograils, thank you. Sleep well.
Endnote: Prograils doesn’t collect your personal data
Online surveillance is one of the major pathologies these days.
We don’t need your personal information unless you are our client and specific data are needed to fill in the B2B software development contract.
Your data is one of your most valuable assets, and, even more so, we have no interest in enabling tech giants to scrutinize it for free. No one should be able to do this randomly.
You don’t have to consider yourself tech-savvy to be aware of this.
It may cost us several business opportunities, but so be it.
We give a damn about your privacy. What we don’t give a damn about is tracking you. You are not a target but, eventually, a partner.
Tech-savvy or not, but with plans to develop software for your business? Rest assured, we’ll get you there safely. Just talk to us.
