I'm using Google webmaster tools but don't know anything about Google Analytics. Before I start to look more closely at the software can anyone out there tell me if it's worth me investing my time into. Thanks in advance.
yes it is. You don't need to invest a lot of time to decide about this anyway. Just copy paste its code to your footer, wait for 1 week, login stats page and if you like what you see there, keep it. If not, remove.
Yes it definitely is! As Logician suggested,you don't need to spend much time on it,just add a piece of code to your site and wait.
But does the code not slow down page loads? I have a very slow connection sometimes and I notice that the connection seems delayed while my browser tries to connect to google analytics.
It's the best in it's department. Simple, yet powerful. It's quite simple. You just copy/paste the tracking code and you're done.
Analytics is one of the fastest (and reliable) stats counters available. There is a milisecond connection delay for sure but you can't find anything faster so if this is a problem to you, you shouldn't install any stats anyway.
It doesn't work for me. I don't know why, it just doesn't. I installed the code in the footer, header, everywhere I could think of. Statcounter works perfectly when I place the code in the same spot, I like that alot better. My new favorite tracker is Woopra. It features a live desktop application that shows visitors in real time, even a plug-in mod for forums, check it out while its free.