"You've read N articles in the last year" broken

[zenonp]

It's been quite some time now since "we have a small favour to ask. You've read N articles in the last year" was introduced, but it still works as badly as in the very beginning. This is what I saw a couple of minutes ago:

I am an avid Guardian reader. I read more than 4 articles in the past hour, probably just shy of 40 today, and hundreds upon hundreds in the last year. I have had the same fixed IPs for years (v4 and non-rotating v6). I only visit the guardian using the same firefox on the same desktop computer. I never use private windows. Last time I cleared my cookies was yesterday, but I see similar single-digit numbers even when I haven't cleared cookies for weeks. I have not logged in even once since 2015. Thus, whatever function does the counting cannot have been confused by changing IPs and browsers, deleted cookies or shifting login state. The function is simply broken (or perhaps just something like $(( $RANDOM % 15 ))). Either way it protects the visitors' privacy, but undermines the image of Guardian tech while being rather unhelpful with fundraising.

Suggestion: just ditch it.

[zenonp]

This went on the same way for another year, but suddenly yesterday the count exceded 20 and continued climbing. Right now I see "You've read 78 articles in the last year", which roughly matches what I've actually read in the past two days. Thus, it seems that this bug has been resolved. If so, it should be closed. Just make sure that the counter has generously many digits, because by April next year I will have gone beyond the 9,999 mark within one running or calendar year .