TraceWatch

Author: Geoff

TraceWatch provides useful site traffic data via an intuitive interface. I found TraceWatch easy to install & configure. The php code is encrypted placing me at the mercy of the developer for bug fixes & added features but seeing as it is released free of charge and no bugs appear to inhibit every day traffic monitoring I have no complaints there. Overall this is a good traffic monitoring application worth having installed to provide information about site and page visits. (TraceWatch V0.234)

Author: Bobby Brown

excellent piece of software, I've installed it and now can track different sections of my site independently - it provides different stats areas that I found quite useful. The interface is very nice and easy to use, gives good stuff for analysis. The only suggestion that I might ask for is to make reports for arbitrary periods rather than only daily and monthly.

Author: Semon

Great easy install, good documentation, wish it would report instantly though as my tests dont come back immediately

Author: Jim Knopf

This software does offer some very nice features and functions. There are two or three things about it, though, that make me wonder wether it is as good as most seem to think: 1. PHP is a scripting language; almost any available PHP script is in plain text so that you can review the code that is executed on your sever. This is true, even if the application is not licensed as Open Source. TraceWatch is written in a way that obstructs and scrambles the plain text so that no one can say what it is really doing. That makes me wonder, because TraceWatch does not cost anything. It is still forbidden to reverseengenier the code so as to check it. Without a testing server specially configured for that purpose, it is impossible (without breaking the license) to tell wether it is seeking contact to its creator or whatever else it might be doing. One of the problems involved is that TraceWatch requires access to a database, for instance, or could be used as a spam relay or DoS base or whatever ... I am not saying, it does any of these things, I am just stating that there is no easy way of finding out if it does. 2. A visit is identified based on the IP of incomming user. This is rather odd, since it does not yield any usefull results. Anyone having more than one computer behind a router, for instance, will be counted as one visitor. That would be true for home users with a LAN and almost any coorporate users. Why not use a session identifier? That way, a user could be identified by his browser, which would render much more usefull results. 3. I and some buddies of mine mailed the author of TraceWatch these concerns and thoughts via his website feedback form a few weeks ago. We are still waiting for any reaction ... So, while I think the applications is very nice and could come quite handy, I will not use it on any site I run. Reasons are that I do have some security concerns and that I do not need information about the IPs that visit my sites but about the people doing so. Regards DerDoof

Author: Geoff Bohrer

This is it. The website stats program I've been looking for for five years. It has features that I didn't even know I wanted, after looking at and trying more than 40 free site stats programs. Install instructions are clear and accurate, features are usable, interface is easy to operate and read. It even tracks non-php pages! You could pay $60 a month for these features elsewhere - or you could spend an hour or so installing TraceWatch, depending on the number of html pages in your site. Two cautions: Ensure your database user has the LOCK_TABLES privilege on the database you're using (you may have to get your ISP to assign this), and unless your database user can do more than 50000 questions (max_questions resource) don't try to use the IP-to-country file. But these are well worth it!

Author:

I've been using & trying a lot of free visitor tracking systems before, but I think I finally found the right one (using it already 2 days). Twatch installed smoothly and has a bunch of interesting features I haven't seen before: * You can reset de database at any time, or stop logging with the click on a button. * You can see how much KBs or MBs the database is using. * Path analysis tool with seconds the user has waited on each page. * Easy to archive days, months,... * Ability to add milestones so that you can check what influence a marketing compaign has. There are some minor points too: * All PHP coded is encrypted, also the HTML pages, so you can't tweak or edit anything (security?) * A lot of tables in the database, 35! * No tracking of screen resolution or plugins. * You cannot block specific IPs from being logged yourself. The creator/programmer responded to my questions within a couple of hours! Neat!