Live data from Hacker News

Please Make Google AMP Optional

alexkras.com

141–150 of 457 posts

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#141

Be sure to structure your Google searches as "g!" searches to DuckDuckGo and AMP effectively disappears with the same set of search results.

Only because Google haven’t turned on AMP results for encrypted.google.com. It’s presumably only a matter of time until they do.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using DDG a few months back and I've been very happy so far. Sometimes results aren't as great, so I just use !g to load Google. But even better, you can search across different websites! For example, !mdn for Mozilla Developer Network, or !yt for YouTube Another thing you can do is use alternative browsers. On mobile I use Firefox Mobile, which has the benefit of allowing extensions, so you can install uBl…

I'm using Android with Chrome, and there is no option to change the search engine to DDG :/ The only options are: Google, Bing, AOL, Yahoo, Ask.

If you go to ddg in chrome they provide a link that will add ddg as a search provider.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using DDG a few months back and I've been very happy so far. Sometimes results aren't as great, so I just use !g to load Google. But even better, you can search across different websites! For example, !mdn for Mozilla Developer Network, or !yt for YouTube Another thing you can do is use alternative browsers. On mobile I use Firefox Mobile, which has the benefit of allowing extensions, so you can install uBl…

I'm using Android with Chrome, and there is no option to change the search engine to DDG :/ The only options are: Google, Bing, AOL, Yahoo, Ask.

I have been looking to do the same, but so far no luck.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#144
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's a closed source algorithm. Google provides guidance directly and indirectly but no one knows how the rank weights work outside of Google. Amp obviously ranks higher it is the top hit in search for me. Results appear under it...

Exactly. Obscure AMP results appear higher thanbigher quality non-AMP results; What needs to be cited?

Which search result, and which obscure AMP result ranks higher than which non-AMP result? That's what needs to be cited, not an assertion free of evidence.

Second, even if that does happen, the question is whether it would have happened without AMP. In other words, is it a bug in the search algorithm, independent of AMP.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#145
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is certainly not true. Oh but it's entirely true. If you buy the conspiracies and allusions of the anti-AMP crowd, there should be some sort of citation you can leverage. As is, the primary real concern among those who denounce AMP is that users will prefer it. Which is a pretty bizarre thing to fight against.

I mean, it's a closed source algorithm. Google provides guidance directly and indirectly but no one knows how the rank weights work outside of Google. Amp obviously ranks higher it is the top hit in search for me. Results appear under it...

Google said that they prioritise fast pages, not AMP pages. You can use some other way to make your pages load fast, and it won't make a difference.

Unless you have solid evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to believe you over believing Google.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using DDG a few months back and I've been very happy so far. Sometimes results aren't as great, so I just use !g to load Google. But even better, you can search across different websites! For example, !mdn for Mozilla Developer Network, or !yt for YouTube Another thing you can do is use alternative browsers. On mobile I use Firefox Mobile, which has the benefit of allowing extensions, so you can install uBl…

I'm using Android with Chrome, and there is no option to change the search engine to DDG :/ The only options are: Google, Bing, AOL, Yahoo, Ask.

The sad thing is that AOL & Yahoo is really Bing, and Ask is I believe Google. So essentially it comes down to Google and Bing.

To get DDG you'll need to use a different browser like FF.

I actually blocked Chrome on my phone and started using FF once I noticed that Chrome was updating itself even though I was requiring manual updates. Play Store and Google Play Services do the same thing, but don't have a good alternative for them,

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#147
post #54

Google Search on Mobile is no longer a web search engine that hyperlinks to the resulting page, but rather an search-integrated newsreader that loads itself when you click on a result that's marked with AMP. This is understandably a big change from how things used to be, but it isn't going to get better anytime soon. After all, most people on mobile spend their time inside apps, probably from some Google competitor l…

"on mobile" these days is a device with a quad core, 3GB of RAM, and a 1080p + screen. I don't want your stupid "mobile" website that doesn't work, your cut-down "optimized" walled-garden product. I just want the normal web, in all its glory.

I feel the same way. 99% of what I do requires the non-mobile site. Most links I open are github pull requests and the mobile site doesn't give the option to approve with a message, second most common is Circle CI which again is worthless in mobile form, third most common is JIRA, which again, I have to click "request desktop" in the menu to be able to search and do everything I expect.

What's even worse is that Google is pushing Chrome tabs in process now: https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/customtabs

So in all the biggest apps like Gmail, Slack, etc. I now have to click a link and it shows up in process, then I have to pick the menu option to view it in real Chrome, then I have to pick the menu option to request desktop site. So they've added two clicks and two page loads to almost every site I visit.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#148
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's a closed source algorithm. Google provides guidance directly and indirectly but no one knows how the rank weights work outside of Google. Amp obviously ranks higher it is the top hit in search for me. Results appear under it...

Google said that they prioritise fast pages, not AMP pages. You can use some other way to make your pages load fast, and it won't make a difference. Unless you have solid evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to believe you over believing Google.

Do you work there or something? I've never seen someone so hyped about the 2nd biggest corp in the world.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#149

I'm trying to imagine the uproar if Apple had done AMP instead of Google. Somehow AMP has some staunch defenders, but everything, and I mean everything about how it's been approached has felt very anti-web and pro-Google. The overall concept may be sound, but the implementation, and the inability to escape it, has significantly hurt my opinion of Google. In fact, I no longer use Google's search because of it.

Do you think there would be an uproar? Apple introduced reading mode, built-in content/ad blocking, etc. AMP actually fits in the profile of Apple -- prioritizing a fast, usable solution. This author notes that they "feel bad" about consuming AMP content. Which is extremely weird given that content creators intentionally volunteer their content to AMP (aside from this user who got famous claiming that Google was stea…

Reading mode is optional and at-will. You can disable pop-up blocking in Settings.

It's pretty clear, I think, Apple would've approached this just like they did reading mode.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#150
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problems are you running in to? I've been using duckduckgo at work for just over a year now (took a change of job as an ideal time to try a complete switch in search engine too), and it has been excellent. I've been getting almost as good results as I do from google on even from some fairly vague terms, and comparable to Google when I give it explicit text to search for. Unlike Google it also seems to pay a lot…

DDG does kinda suck at finding specific programming things sometimes. The results are just not as good for the more obscure and rare stuff.

This is because Google also tries to build a profile for you and serves different results based on that, while DDG will return the same thing for the same keywords to different people.

For searches in specific domains it is better to use bangs. For example prefixing with !py shows results from python manual.

Here's more about it: https://duckduckgo.com/bang

Post reply on HN