What are some potential pitfalls of using IP addresses to distinguish users in a PHP counter?

One potential pitfall of using IP addresses to distinguish users in a PHP counter is that multiple users can share the same IP address, such as in the case of users behind a proxy server or using a shared network. This can lead to inaccurate tracking of unique visitors. To solve this issue, you can use cookies to uniquely identify users instead of relying solely on IP addresses. 

// Set a unique cookie for each visitor
if(!isset($_COOKIE['visitor_id'])) {
    $visitor_id = uniqid();
    setcookie('visitor_id', $visitor_id, time() + 3600 * 24 * 365); // Cookie expires in 1 year
}

// Use the visitor_id cookie to distinguish unique visitors
$visitor_id = $_COOKIE['visitor_id'];

// Increment counter for unique visitors
// Your code to increment the counter goes here

Keywords

IP addresses user identification PHP counter session hijacking privacy concerns

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