For years I’ve used Nedstat as statistic counter for my website/weblog. The free version, since it’s only to see how I’m doing. My weblog does not have any commercial purposes.
Since some time (can’t remember how long) the Nedstat icon also created a pop-under window with ads. I don’t like that, and I assume that you -my readers- don’t like it either. Finally I found something to replace it. You don’t see it, it doesn’t require javascript, and it’s not client-side but server-side. And it’s freeware. Not all the bells and whistles Nedstat gives you, or other stat-counters, but it’ll do for me. It’s bbclone, and it’s written in PHP. As they call it: “A PHP based Web Counter on Steroids”.
Integration into WordPress was a bit of a pain, but it finally works. At one point you have to specify the path to bbclone software, so it knows where to get the icons and other stuff from. I always assumed they meant an URL-path, but it turns out to be a normal directory-path on the disk.