

Ask HN: collecting usage statistics - vijayr

Many tools collect usage statistics (Eclipse, for example).  What kind of data do they collect?  I understand that the data is going to be different for different tools, but in general what kind of data do these companies collect? How do they decide what data to collect, and do they really use it to improve their products (or what exactly do they do with the data)?
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CoryMathews
Normally they are looking for what features you use most and how you use them.

For example a program has a button on the main menu, after collecting usage
stats they find out no one clicks this button. Thus they remove it from the
menu. ect. Its normally all for usability.

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vijayr
Is this data public, in the case of open source projects like Eclipse?

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CoryMathews
Its probably optional, I don't regularly use Eclipse but for example Firefox
just did it and it is optional.

