Offen Fair Web Analytics

We develop a fair and lightweight web analytics software called Offen that treats operators and users as equal parties. In the last eight weeks we have been working on milestone 6 ‐ the last one defined in our initial product plan defining the scope of our support by the NGI Zero PET initiative. Here's what happened.

Running almost everywhere
We extended our installation options and tuorials. Let us know if you are aware of another great target for installing Offen.

Helping you to get started
We have seen people starting to install of Offen and fixed some expected teething troubles along the way. We have also gained further insights into the way our software is deployed and used so that we can further optimize it for relevant use cases.

Helping you to start contributing
It is of the most importance for us to open up the development of Offen to the community. To kick this off, we will be participating in this year's Hacktoberfest. Head to the [relevant issues on our repository and start hacking right away. Also feel free to forward this to whoever might be interested.

For the whole story head to our blog.

We develop a fair and open web analytics software that treats operators and users as equal parties. Our app is called Offen and in the works since the end of 2019. In the last six weeks we have been working on milestone 5 and have stripped the alpha label. That's what we've accomplished.

A11y and security upgrade
Stichting Accessibility has kindly carried out an accessibility audit of our app. We have received a lot of helpful feedback to make Offen a truly accessible and inclusive analytics tool. Furthermore, Radically Open Security carried out an in-depth security audit for us. No major flaws were found, and together we developed some very good ideas on how to make Offen even safer. All updates are included in the latest version, so make sure to update.

For the whole story head to our blog.

We finished milestone 4. Here is what we' ve been doing for the last 8 weeks.

Meeting the needs of teams
We have taken the time to bring our account management to a new level. Our updates aim to satisfy setups like smaller dev shops or agencies. Offen now features read-only users, fine-grained controls for sharing access, and other management options.

Testing, 1, 2, 3
We have done research to prepare for the upcoming integration test coverage of all our user-facing features. We ended up choosing and implementing a setup using Cypress. A popular MIT-licensed tool that can run tests in multiple browsers like Chromium and Firefox.

For the whole story head to our blog.

Milestone 3 has been completed. Two excerpts of what we have achieved in the last ten weeks.

Improved UX
The Auditorium for users is now annotated with explanations of all metrics as well as analytics-specific terms. It also contains an FAQ section. In general, new metrics were added and the UX was refined for users and operators.

Working in teams
If you want to improve your services with transparent and fair web analytics, it is very likely that you collaborate in groups. Therefore, in a first draft we have added basic utilities for managing user logins and accounts. These tools will be further refined during milestone 4.

For the whole story head to our blog.

We finished milestone 2. Two examples of what we' ve been doing for the last 8 weeks.

Collecting data only with consent
A first approach to one of our major features is implemented. Websites that embed the Offen script now display a user consent banner. In case of user's deny, no other requests than loading the script are made from then on.

Accidental leaks don't expose data
We encrypt all event data before it leaves the browser. Two types of crypto implementations are used for this. This allows us to handle user data from both https and http-only sites securely.

Head to our blog for more.

Milestone 1 is completed. Here are two of the things we've achieved in the last six weeks.

Extension through middleware
We have further refined the existing application architecture to make it more robust and accessible to both contributors and people who want to build upon Offen. As a developer, you can transparently control additional behavior by adding or removing middleware.

Easy to test drive
Download a single binary file and run it on your local computer to get an Offen instance up and running immediately. At the moment this setup only supports Linux. Windows and MacOS will follow soon.

Check out our blog for more.

Kick off for our project on building a transparent and ethical alternative to established web analytics tools. In addition to the technical basics, we develop a product roadmap, research the competitors in the entire analysics sector and start looking for sponsors.