CAOS

CAOS, or Complete Analytics Optimization Suite, is a WordPress plugin allowing you to host the Google Analytics javascript file locally on your server. The plugin is developed by Daan van den Bergh and it is available for free from the official WordPress repository.

Why would you use this plugin? The answer is simple: for performance reasons. If you use Google Analytics and test your website in Google PageSpeed Insights, you might notice that Google doesn't follow its own recommendation regarding the cache expiration time. If a file is hosted on a third-party server which you cannot control, then there is nothing you can do. But if the file is hosted on the same server as your website, then you can adjust the cache expiration time. This plugin will move the Google Analytics file to your server and will send updates to your Google Analytics account.

It will improve your scores in various speed tests and may improve the page load times. Even though the improvement may not be very significant, every little bit helps. And that is basically how you achieve super-fast page load times: you optimize everything you can optimize.

CAOS is a free plugin, although there is a premium upgrade: Super Stealth Upgrade. This extension promises to bypass all ad blockers. Visitors using certain ad blockers may not appear in your Google Analytics reports. The Super Stealth Mode of CAOS promises to fool these ad blockers, so that you can see also visitors with such ad blockers in your reports. Because of this extension, you might consider CAOS a freemium plugin. However, because of the relatively small scope of the upgrade and the fact that the free version will perfectly fulfill the needs of the vast majority of users, I think that classifying this plugin as a free one is more appropriate.

If you are a user of CAOS, you might notice that the author likes to frequently update the plugin, more frequently than developers of other plugins. Some updates may include only a single change or a few minor changes. As you should always keep your plugins up-to-date, some people might find it a nuisance. I don't have any problem with it whatsoever. If that's the style of the developer, then so be it. I am very grateful to Daan for developing this plugin and offering it for free.