StatCounter - Nasty pest or simply a cookie?

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?

 

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?

 

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.

 

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.