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Please Make Google AMP Optional

alexkras.com

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Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#181

Post by whoami_nr »

themodelplumber wrote: post #120
godot wrote: post #118

There's a lot of complaint about Google AMP and Facebook Instant Articles, e.g. walled garden, anti-open-web and whatnot. Here's something simpler from a non-developer, average-consumer point of view. I recently began taking BART to work daily (new job). For those who don't know, BART is Bay Area's subway system, and (at least on the east bay side) cell reception is notoriously spotty. When I'm on the train, which in…

Yeah, but maybe there's a better way to get you your nice BART outcome, you know? I think that's really part of the pushback here. We haven't really given social permission for Google to convert the web to AMP by force.

Exactly. You can ask Google/Facebook to provide hotspots inside trains, ask the network provider to make cell reception better inside the subway etc. There are ways to achieve a better outcome instead of locking down how you consume the internet.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#182

Post by driverdan »

nerdponx wrote: post #87
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #45

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 actually find DDG results to be better and more relevant a lot of the time nowadays. The only thing Google really has an edge on (for my use) is searching for academic articles, because of Google Scholar.

DDG used to be worse but now it's about even. Every time I get bad results on DDG and use !g I find equally bad results.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#184

Post by reaperducer »

As someone who used to make WAP web sites for mobile phones, I find AMP's limitations comforting and its goal laudable. Much better than the throw-another-javascript-framework-on-the-pile ethos that they teach kids coming out of school these days.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#185

Post by kartickv »

albedoa wrote: post #171
kartickv wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with the other comments that you seem overly invested in this, but I'll play along: Do a search for "wwdc" on mobile. This was my first and only test against your challenge. It isn't just a matter of the AMP results being ranked higher — they are segmented from non-AMP pages. The eleven (!) "Top Stories" are all AMP pages. Under that is "People also searched for > WWDC iPhone 8", which consists of five (!) AM…

I don't see us having a constructive exchange of views, where each person gets a perspective they didn't have earlier, so I won't reply. Have a good day.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#186

Post by reaperducer »

whoami_nr wrote: post #181
themodelplumber wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but maybe there's a better way to get you your nice BART outcome, you know? I think that's really part of the pushback here. We haven't really given social permission for Google to convert the web to AMP by force.

Exactly. You can ask Google/Facebook to provide hotspots inside trains, ask the network provider to make cell reception better inside the subway etc. There are ways to achieve a better outcome instead of locking down how you consume the internet.

So in your world, he should devote all of his time, money, and effort into getting multi-billion dollar corporations and massive bureaucracies to install millions of dollars of soon-to-be-outdated equipment in a massive urban transportation upgrade, instead of just clicking on the link that works?

Millennial thinking.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#187

Post by freehunter »

dingo_bat wrote: post #173
baconner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hypothetical there assumes that AMP actually works well. My experience is it's got painful usability issues at least on android chrome. The worst one I see all the time is scrolling down to actually read the AMP page frequently results in the page closing, returning you to results. Fast is good, but at least it ought to be a good user experience. I used to use google news a lot, but i totally abandoned it after…

Although AMP is not a performance beast by any measure, your experience is coloured because you're using Chrome on Android. Google news works pretty well on Samsung browser. It still annoys me that I can't see the link to the actual website but that's it.

So you're saying that Google's official browser is slow on their official web technology on their official mobile platform? And Samsung, who is well known for their software quality issues, is a better choice?

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#190

Post by kyrra »

baconner wrote: post #169
ender7 wrote: post #151

Users: I like AMP pages, they're fast! HN: But the open Internet! Users: What's that? HN: Normal websites! Users: Like...the really slow ones? With all the annoying popovers? And pages that take forever to load? And for some reason cause my fancy new phone to slow to a crawl? HN: Well, those websites should rewrite their entire codebase to be faster. Users: That doesn't help me, though. HN: Trust in the free market!…

Your hypothetical there assumes that AMP actually works well. My experience is it's got painful usability issues at least on android chrome. The worst one I see all the time is scrolling down to actually read the AMP page frequently results in the page closing, returning you to results. Fast is good, but at least it ought to be a good user experience. I used to use google news a lot, but i totally abandoned it after…

[I work for Google, opinions my own]

If you have specific issues you can spell out, consider filing a bug on it[0]? The AMP team is tracking most of their work via Github as far as I'm aware.

As an iOS user, one bug that bothered me for a long time with AMP was scroll inertia, which seems to be an issue with Webkit rather than AMP[1]. If you poke around the tracker, you can see the team does what it can to fix issues across all platforms/browsers.

[0] https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues

[1] https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5125

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