StatCounter - Nasty pest or simply a cookie?

[Minibyte]

I am in the process of developing a web site. I want web stats that show visitors, not just hits. In searching for a counter that meets my needs I found StatCounter.

http://www.statcounter.com/

Before registering and installing, I searched the web for comments and reviews. It gets high ratings. However, PestPatrol classifies it as a Tracking Cookie pest which it can remove.

http://www.pestpatrol.com/zks/pestinfo/s/statcounter.asp

I need some clarification and all searches merely took me in circles. Is Statcounter merely a cookie which is used to track a visitor's activity on a site, or does it do some nasty things? Is it included for removal by PestPatrol simply because it is a harmless cookie, but takes up space and some people dislike cookies?

[se7engreen]

As far as I know, it's a chunk of code people drop into their websites to count the number of hits the site gets. I do believe this can also report to the site creator an approximate geographical location and possibly your OS.

[Minibyte]

-{ Quote: "As far as I know, it's a chunk of code people drop into their websites to count the number of hits the site gets. I do believe this can also report to the site creator an approximate geographical location and possibly your OS." }-

Yes, it collects that info. Location is just name of country. No personal information is collected. But why is in identified as a pest? Are all tracking cookies considered Pests?

[se7engreen]

Sorry, I should've read more thouroughly.
It does set a cookie, and it can be considered a tracking cookie, but it doesn't do anything malicious to anyone's system. I'm sure some people will remove the cookie and be recognized as a new user everytime they visit your site.

I don't use pest patrol but I'd guess that it considers most tracking cookies as pests. I wouldn't worry about it too much as you're only trying to gather stats for yourself and the cookie that statcouter sets will not harm anyone's computer.

[Minibyte]

Thank you very much. I thought it was safe, but as I had never used a counter, I wanted to check it out. Your answer took care of my question and concerns.