Weird Browser Stats

There are Lies and then there are Statistics.

I'm sure we've all heard that before.  I was going through statistics on this blog.  Not really sure why, but occasionally I do check it.  Other than realizing that people in far flung parts of the US, China, The Ukraine, and others like to look at recipes, pictures from the Florida Keys, and read cute stories about cute dogs, it does help inform me as to whether I should continue this exercise of writing something each day.

Even if it is a copy and paste exercise on the weekends.   Bad Joke Saturday and Bad Joke Sunday have to get their Bad Jokes somewhere!

All statistics are approximations, your mileage may vary...

Some of the hits are obviously false, such as those from crawlers and the like.  I've been told to ignore those, and I won't be even saying who they are here because I don't want to encourage them.

Yes, it's like the misbehaving child at the family table - ignore your bots and they'll behave.

If you do look at your statistics and see something coming from a Vampire or a Zombie site, ignore it or you'll get spiked as well.  Google Analytics is correct, Blogger is not.

But within that stat page, I also get reports on what kind of technologies that are being used to look at the blog.  

Someone is using something called "NS8" to get here.  I had to follow that one up.  I mean, it's not like it's one of my Linux readers, or someone using their iPhone or Mac to surf here, I can tell what that is.  I know that when someone surfs me with Iceweasel, they're on Debian Linux since that is what I use on my Linux Machine.  Stability, thy name is Debian.  They really should use the slogan "Debian, It Just Works!".  Even on your 10 year old computer...

Anyway...

Not having ever heard of NS8 I looked it up.   NS8 is "most likely" a copy of the old Netscape Browser version 8.   To give you an idea, that's equivalent to Firefox 1.0.   Firefox is on version 25 at this date. 

Congrats, you are using the latest version of Firefox!  is what you should see when you click on that Firefox link.

PSA - Upgrade your software when you can.   Or some blogger will be waggling a finger at you for not doing so.

I'm looking at you Windows XP People.   You're almost as bad as I was when I got my Mac - it had OSX Leopard on it, and I immediately upgraded a month later to Snow Leopard.

My Mac Peeps will know what I'm talking about.   How's your Mavericks?  Kewl?

Immediately, a month later.   Er... well they do say that Macs have no viruses and well...

Not content to just wonder about this NS8 thing, I also got a visit from someone using something called "OS;FBSV".

Er, wha?

The best I can tell is that somehow, someone, is using their iPhone in Facebook to follow through. 

Hey, it may not matter to you, but I am a curious type.

I did after all have a person surf my blog from something called "Windows NT 6.1".  Most likely someone got bored while working on a server somewhere in a noisy server room and surfed my page.

I just hope I didn't bore them or the rest of you too much with all that.