Privacy-Friendly Analytics That Actually Work (Even With Adblockers)

If you run a website in 2026, there is a good chance your analytics are incomplete.

Not because the dashboard is wrong, but because a meaningful share of traffic never reaches it. Privacy tools block third-party analytics aggressively, including tools that are comparatively respectful.

That creates an awkward situation: developers move away from invasive analytics, then lose visibility anyway because the requests still look like tracking to the browser.

The fix is not to become more invasive. It is to make the implementation cleaner.

The Problem: Third-Party Domains Are Dead

Traditional analytics work like this:

1. Load a script from analytics-provider.com
2. Send data to analytics-provider.com/api/collect
3. Hope the user's browser allows it

Adblockers maintain massive blocklists of known tracking domains. When they see a request to umami.is, plausible.io, or google-analytics.com, they kill it instantly.

Even privacy-respecting tools get caught in the crossfire.

The Solution: First-Party Proxying

Instead of loading analytics from a third-party domain, proxy it through your own domain so requests remain first-party from the browser's perspective.

The trick: Next.js rewrites.

Step 1: Configure Server-Side Rewrites

In next.config.ts:

async rewrites() {
  return [
    {
      source: "/metrics/lib.js",
      destination: "https://cloud.umami.is/script.js",
    },
    {
      source: "/metrics/api/send",
      destination: "https://cloud.umami.is/api/send",
    },
  ]
}

What this does:

• Browser requests /metrics/lib.js, Next.js fetches it from Umami's CDN server-side
• Tracking data sent to /metrics/api/send gets forwarded to Umami's API
• The browser never touches umami.is directly

That shifts the implementation model without changing the privacy posture.

Step 2: Load the Script from Your Domain

In app/layout.tsx:

<Script
  src="/metrics/lib.js"
  data-website-id="your-umami-website-id"
  data-host-url="/metrics"
  strategy="lazyOnload"
/>

Key details:

• src="/metrics/lib.js" loads from your domain, not Umami's
• data-host-url="/metrics" tells the script to send data to /metrics/api/send
• strategy="lazyOnload" defers loading until after the page is interactive

It is also better for performance.

Step 3: Deploy and Test

1. Open your site with an adblocker enabled
2. Check DevTools, Network tab
3. You should see:
   • metrics/lib.js loads with a 200 status
   • metrics/api/send receives POST requests
   • no requests to umami.is, because everything is proxied

If those conditions are true, the setup is behaving the way it should.

Why This Works (And Why It's Not Evil)

Adblockers use domain-based filtering. They can't block /metrics/lib.js on your domain because:

1. It's not on any blocklist
2. It's a same-origin request, with no third-party warning
3. They'd have to block your entire site to stop it

But isn't this sneaky?

Umami does not rely on the same invasive model as legacy analytics platforms. No cookie wall, no ad network profile, no cross-site identity stitching.

The point is not to reconstruct individual users. It is to recover a truer picture of page views, routes, and general content performance.

That distinction matters. Privacy-friendly analytics and invasive surveillance are not the same implementation problem.

The Performance Bonus

There is also a practical performance upside.

When you load a script from a third-party domain, the browser has to:

1. Do a DNS lookup for the external domain
2. Establish a new connection
3. Negotiate TLS
4. Download the script

With first-party proxying:

1. Same domain, so no DNS lookup
2. Existing connection with HTTP/2 multiplexing
3. Already-established TLS session

The request path becomes simpler, and the script can load with less connection overhead.

Other Frameworks?

This technique works anywhere you can configure server-side rewrites:

• Vercel: Use vercel.json rewrites
• Netlify: Use _redirects or netlify.toml
• Cloudflare Workers: Intercept and proxy requests
• Nginx/Apache: Configure reverse proxy rules

The concept is the same: make third-party analytics look like first-party requests.

The Reality

Privacy and measurement do not need to cancel each other out.

Users want stronger privacy guarantees. Product teams still need signal. The better answer is to improve the implementation, not to revert to older tracking habits.

First-party proxying gives you a cleaner middle ground: enough signal to make decisions, without abandoning the privacy standard you chose in the first place.

When large portions of traffic disappear, product decisions get noisier. Better data does not solve judgment, but it does remove blind spots.

Try It Yourself

If you're using Next.js and want to add Umami:

1. Sign up at umami.is - the free tier is generous
2. Add the rewrites to next.config.ts
3. Add the script tag to your layout
4. Deploy and watch your real traffic numbers come in

That is the real goal: analytics that stay useful without turning into something users need to defend themselves against.