Stat counter solutions

I've been thinking lately about the stat counter I have on my blog. I hide mine intentionally and I was curious what everyone else thought about this topic. I hide mine because I think it's impossible to actually tell if the numbers are accurate or not for a visitor to my site. In other words, some people use their counter to reflect page loads, some use it just for individual users. It's impossible, when visiting a site, to tell what the number actually reflects. I use mine for tracking purposes only (where people are coming from, how long they visit, which posts are popular, etc.) and so I've set mine to record individual users and I also only record each individual IP address once each day. So, what about you? How do you have your stat counter set? Do you make it public? Why or why not?