I have used the very popular Malwarebytes Premium for many years to protect my PC from Malware and Phishing websites.

Upon installation Users are given the option to install Malwarebytes Browser Guard which is a FREE browser extension for Google Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. This filters out annoying ads and scams while blocking trackers that spy on you.

=> My concern is that by default Malwarebytes Browser Guard BLOCKS www.googletagmanager.com and www.google-analytics.com.
=> Therefore your Google Analytics 4 visitor analysis script will not function.


Yes, you can manually allow those trackers in the Browser Guard interface. However, in my humble opinion, visit analysis scripts like this are harmless, not an invasion of privacy and should be whitelisted by default.

On the Malwarebytes Forum there are posts requesting that this issue be fixed. Here is one sample: https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/284149-false-positive/

But Malwarebytes respond with comments like:

quote:

---

the complaints that people have about advertisers targeting them -- making them feel like they are being stalked -- is because of trackers.

---

So for now, there is no solution.

Gary

Hi Gary, good post as usual, although Google Analytics 4 visitor analysis script is a form of tracking, so I suppose it's to be expected IMHO.

I have the Firefox "Enhanced Tracking Protection" turned on and I'm pretty sure it ignores GA4 as well.
There are likely going to be more and more tools that allows users to stop being tracked, including by GA.

David