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Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#111

Post by 0x0 »

tambourine_man wrote: post #31
notgood wrote: post #7

"publication independence"? Really? The man who is famous among other things for supporting the most closed ecosystem there is around: iOS, where a single company decides what apps are worth publishing and wish ones doesn't. Or does newspaper publication independence is really that more important than software publication independence. The irony is so clear that it's weird that he didn't even mention it. That genie i…

I wish there was a big red “I know what I'm doing” button on iOS that allowed the user to download and install a binary from a simple web page. But technically, you can download the source and/or write your own code, compile and install on your iOS device without jailbreaking or going through the AppStore. It's a hassle, sure, but doable.

The appstore-only policy is probably what has kept iOS from having any noteworthy large outbreak of malware. Unfortunately, the Darwin kernel as well as the various iOS frameworks have huge glaring security vulnerabilities patched in every minor update. A free-for-all unvetted code-exec option would open the floodgates for deceptive downloads and compromised iOS devices.

Of course, it also makes good business sense for both Apple and third party developers as it keeps piracy to a minimum (though I'm sure a subset of 3rd party developers might find skipping the 30% Apple cut valuable)

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#112

Post by zackbloom »

richdougherty wrote: post #3

In theory* I don't mind the idea of having a more standardised subset web page that has a consistent internal structure and that renders quickly. However, having Google load this structured content and host it on its own platform is a terrible idea. Content should remain on the publisher's site. Putting too much content in one place is dangerous for competition. * In practice there are implementation problems too, e.…

It's worth pointing out Cloudflare has a competing AMP serving tool: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-optimization/accelerated-...

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#113

Post by tyingq »

velobro wrote: post #92
matthewmacleod wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference is that there are alternatives to iOS, which isn't even a majority share of the market. Google, by contrast, has a far larger share of the search engine market than Apple has of the mobile device market. That means it's more of a concern by default.

Then Apple should make their own search engine...

I suppose Apple could modify Safari to skip through AMP pages and go to the original source.

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#114

Post by eridius »

exergy wrote: post #70
jwilcoxson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout Duck Duck Go, still not Google-level results, but it's still pretty good, and not Bing.

Duckduckgo is a lovely idea with abhorrent search results. Like, unusably bad results, at least to the extent that I'm a reasonably tech savvy user. I'm often searching for papers as a grad student, or typing things "close enough" and hoping Google figures it out for me etc. Duckduckgo cannot keep up. I love Bangs, I love the idea, but the search is nigh-useless. That said, I use StartPage, who have a contract I beli…

Maybe you're searching for something really niche, but I use DDG and have no problem with its results. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I can always use !g to check google, and most of the time google doesn't have the answer either!

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#115

Post by namuol »

> Google has no respect for [iOS Safari]. It’s a deliberate effort by Google to break the open web.

I could make the same argument that Apple cripples iOS Safari's implementations of emerging standards that aim to bring the web experience closer to a "native feel" to keep its app store revenue churning:

http://caniuse.com/#feat=stream

...but really it's a lot more likely that getting _all_ things right on _all_ platforms is the really, really hard thing about the web, for browser vendors and web developers alike.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence (or in this case, sheer overwhelming difficulty).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#116

Post by jeffbax »

niftich wrote: post #96

The complaint about AMP's strange UX paradigms is valid: it works very hard to pretend like every AMP article is a standalone website, but it actually behaves like a viewport-wrapping iframe, where Google Search is on the outside and the article is on the inside [1]. But it's not a personal affront to iOS; it's more of an artifact of Google's confusing market strategy and conflicting requirements for AMP's deployment…

Is Apple news more than a feed spec like RSS / is the content hosted by Apple directly, like how AMP pages actually live on google.com?

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#117

Post by jeffbax »

Semaphor wrote: post #74
colinbartlett wrote: post #21

If you hate AMP as much as I do, I highly recommend switching your mobile browser to DuckDuckGo. The results are as good as Google and no AMP.

> The results are as good as Google and no AMP. I use ddg myself and as much as I like it, it's still quite a bit away from Google in quality of search results. Usually it's good enough, but I still get result pages where ddg has nothing I want and appending !g gives me what I want in #1

Same, I use DDG, but fall back to the

> !g

bang quite often when I need to really find something

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#118

Post by zepto »

notgood wrote: post #7

"publication independence"? Really? The man who is famous among other things for supporting the most closed ecosystem there is around: iOS, where a single company decides what apps are worth publishing and wish ones doesn't. Or does newspaper publication independence is really that more important than software publication independence. The irony is so clear that it's weird that he didn't even mention it. That genie i…

Whataboutism is just as distasteful here as it is when Fox News does it.

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#119

Post by MBCook »

skybrian wrote: post #108
MBCook wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called HTML, and it's been around for a number of years. If you don't put 12 megs of JavaScript on it and five auto playing video ads… you'd be surprised how fast web pages can be. This isn't a problem that "needs" solving. It's not like it's impossible or even difficult to make a fast loading pages with the existing technologies. The people who didn't care before or just outsourcing it to someone else who doesn…

You're missing the point. Once you've clicked on the link, it's too late. Putting an icon on the link that says "this isn't one of those bloated pages" seems useful, particularly for people on slow connections. In theory, someone else could create another standard and write browser extensions to put an icon on links that meet that standard. The HTML standard doesn't help with this, not by itself, anyway.

In Safari I've gotten the sense (don't know if it's true) it pauses the connections when I go into reader mode for JS and such.

> The HTML standard doesn't help with this, not by itself, anyway.

True. But it also doesn't CAUSE it which some people almost seem to be arguing from, as if fat HTML pages are a fait-accompli.

Re: Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

#120

Post by idlewords »

notgood wrote: post #7

"publication independence"? Really? The man who is famous among other things for supporting the most closed ecosystem there is around: iOS, where a single company decides what apps are worth publishing and wish ones doesn't. Or does newspaper publication independence is really that more important than software publication independence. The irony is so clear that it's weird that he didn't even mention it. That genie i…

This does not address the argument at all. Pretend someone else made it, if Gruber bugs you.
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