Most basic / easy hit counter?

What would be the easiest / most basic form of a hit counter to incorporate into a site? As old fashioned as they are it’s been insisted I put one at the bottom of each page - No need for anything flashy just showing the number of visitors is ideal.

I was using one that stored hits in a text file but every so often it will lose the hits, for example it was at 1019 last night and this morning it dropped to 11 - similar happened two weeks ago.

Thanks.

This isn’t primarily a Javascript issue. I would guess that the server-side code isn’t filtering input properly and is being periodically attacked.

do you have any suggestions as to an alternative or would i be best to show you the script?
Thanks LA

I suggest you show the code on a forum that deals with that server side language, and ask how to make it more robust.