TYPO3: count number of file downloads in v 7.6.x - typo3

Question

Is there an extension for counting the number of file downloads (e.g. pdf) compatible with TYPO3 v 7.6.x?
For older versions dbdownloadtracker or cc_awstats did it. But they are not compatible with 7.6.x unfortunately.

Answer 1

I see from its documentation that the extension kk_downloader (https://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/kk_downloader) has a "counter" feature.
Otherwise, I think that you could set up something with Google Analytics

Answer 2

Google Analytics might be the best choice and you don't depend on a Typo3 extension. It works for any website, Typo3 or not, but needs to be loaded after your GA script. The statistics show up as Events in Google Analytics and they are recorded right away in Google, no need to wait hours to see the stats working.
It tracks Downloads, External site clicks, mailto, and telephones clicked/called from links if set with href="tel:[phone]". You can use your own format for phones in your HTML.
It tracks these file extenions: exe, zip, pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx. If you need more file types, just add to the list in var filetypes the extensions separated by a pipe.
Make sure you use jQuery or update the code.
<script type="text/javascript">
if (typeof jQuery != 'undefined') {
jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
var filetypes = /\.(exe|zip|pdf|doc*|xls*|ppt*)$/i;
var baseHref = '';
if (jQuery('base').attr('href') != undefined) baseHref = jQuery('base').attr('href');
jQuery('a').each(function() {
var href = jQuery(this).attr('href');
if (href && (href.match(/^https?\:/i)) && (!href.match(document.domain))) {
jQuery(this).click(function() {
var extLink = href.replace(/^https?\:\/\//i, '');
ga('send', 'event', 'External', 'Click', extLink);
if (jQuery(this).attr('target') != undefined && jQuery(this).attr('target').toLowerCase() != '_blank') {
setTimeout(function() {
location.href = href;
}, 200);
return false;
}
});
} else if (href && href.match(/^mailto\:/i)) {
jQuery(this).click(function() {
var mailLink = href.replace(/^mailto\:/i, '');
ga('send', 'event', 'Email', 'Click', mailLink);
});
} else if (href && href.match(/^tel\:/i)) {
jQuery(this).click(function() {
var phoneLink = href.replace(/^tel\:/i, '');
ga('send', 'event', 'Phone', 'Click', phoneLink);
});
} else if (href && href.match(filetypes)) {
jQuery(this).click(function() {
var extension = (/[.]/.exec(href)) ? /[^.]+$/.exec(href) : undefined;
var filePath = href;
ga('send', 'event', 'Download', 'Click-' + extension, filePath);
if (jQuery(this).attr('target') != undefined && jQuery(this).attr('target').toLowerCase() != '_blank') {
setTimeout(function() {
location.href = baseHref + href;
}, 200);
return false;
}
});
}
});
});
}
</script>
For more details about this code, the original was found here: http://www.blastam.com/blog/how-to-track-downloads-in-google-analytics, but the code in this answer uses the new ga event and also adds the tracking for Phones clicked.
After you apply this code, in Google Analytics don't forget to filter the current day as per default Google selects the range until the day before today.
Hope this helps someone out there.