Analytics and marketing tools used on all websites – such as Google Analytics, GTM (both client- and server-side), Facebook Pixel, and many more – are increasingly blocked by privacy tools and ad blockers. As a result, 15–50% of front-end data (conversions, attribution, referrals) never reaches dashboards. This missing data has long been accepted as the norm, to the point where front-end analytics are treated as unreliable and approximate.
DataUnlocker 2.0 offers a drop-in solution: a proxy and JavaScript protection layer that shields tracking from blockers. It becomes an integral part of your web application — not only hiding analytics from generic blocking filters, but also making the code essential for the app to function. Blockers simply have no safe way to remove it.
Your feedback is welcome – happy to dive deeper.
Interesting work! I have a question -- How can I block it in umatrix?
There's no way to block it — that's by design. The only way would be to block the entire website or disable JavaScript entirely. DataUnlocker makes the app function as a single integrated unit, so trying to cut out one piece causes the whole thing to stop working.
It's a broader topic worth deeper discussion to be honest. I'll be posting more on it soon — including why I believe the internet privacy "movement" should align with this: instead of breaking tools used in web apps (while I agree if you can, you can), the focus should go on pseudo-anonymizing users (web clients) while preserving functionality – parts of it are already implemented (VPNs, one-time sessions, etc). I can honestly see both sides of the debate — it's a long-standing and nuanced topic.
Pseudo-anonymizing is worthless snake oil, and provides little in the way of actual privacy. This tool is just an escalation in the level of contempt being routinely shown against actual people.
Can you explain more on why "Pseudo-anonymizing is worthless snake oil, and provides little in the way of actual privacy"?
I'm sure when one uses Tor browser (an example of what I mean under pseudo-anonymizing), they are as safe from tracking as possible. They will get tracking cookies and all that, but from a random location, and all IDs the web app could have created will be destroyed right after closing the browser tab.
Well, for starters, I don't consider the Tor browser to be anonymizing. It only offers protection against outside attackers, it offers almost no protection against the websites you may browse to (how could it?)
Pseudo-anonymization is snake oil because it's not that hard to reverse. All you have to do is combine the "anonymized" data with data from other sources and you can identify people. It doesn't even take that much data from other sources.
True anonymization is possible: it requires the collector to just keep general aggregate statistics and to immediately delete the individual telemetry reports. But few entities do that, and we have to just trust that the ones the claim they do are being honest and competent about it. But the track record is extremely poor so trusting in such claims is, in my opinion, very foolish.