Please Make Google AMP Optional • Hacker News Board

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#431

Post by slackingoff2017 » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 4:47 AM UTC

tigershark wrote: post #372

boulos wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I work at Google (but not on search). You're confusing an important thing here: Google places news higher than the original source. Given that WWDC is over, this is actually preferable. It is true that all the news results are AMPed, but there was certainly a time when not everyone was onboard yet and the carousel included non-AMP results (I assume if you can find a news topic sufficiently obscure to have…

So you are confirming what is the mainstream thought in this thread: Google is actually ranking higher AMP pages compared to normal content. Because I think that each top ranking news website has also a non AMP-ed version. But, as per you admission and the anecdota in this thread, all the news are litterally dominated by AMP results. So I can't really see how people can still assert that AMP has no whatsoever influen…

I reckon the deeper purpose behind AMP is to fight ad blockers. Another google source in a thread from a few months back mentioned that the AMP team was within Google's advertising division.

The goal is to get all the content onto google servers so they can serve ads from the same origin that cannot be blocked.

Amp in combination with chrome's built in "ad blocker" is part of a broader Google strategy to protect their advertising model.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#432

Post by majewsky » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 6:35 AM UTC

risyasin wrote: post #293

kartickv wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do not really believe that. I have a site which is served way faster than it's Amp version. Obviously Google never really care to check whether original page is faster than AMP. Yes I have numbers. AMP version loads about 400ms. While the original was about 300ms. Almost certain for all pages.

That was likely a singular measurement, likely from your notebook. A user at some other location might very much disagree, unless your site has a CDN as extensive as Google.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#433

Post by Mindwipe » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 8:52 AM UTC

limeblack wrote: post #4

JeremyBanks wrote: post #2

Google search doesn't really have many options like this, and I'd be shocked if they added this one. But given the URL format, it should be trivial for a browser extensions to rewrite links or requests from AMP pages to the original. I bet it already exists.

And how do you plan to do this when no mobile browsers suppport extensions?

Samsung's browser does, and has reasonable marketshare. With a few tweaks iOS content blockers could achieve this, and I have to wonder if Apple are considering it.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#434

Post by Mindwipe » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 8:57 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #187

dingo_bat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Samsung's browser (and several other competitors) are faster on Android because they contain closed source rendering that's customised for their chipsets. Google can't integrate the closed source code into Chrome because they'd effectively have to fork it from Chromium to do so.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#435

Post by Mindwipe » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 8:59 AM UTC

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…

They're also often significantly more feature poor, and the ugly URL bar is a net usability detractor.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#436

Post by wruza » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 9:47 AM UTC

Gigablah wrote: post #318

wruza wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no longer use Google's search because of it I'm not using it too, but not because of that (and I was unaware of amp before). DDG shows instant wiki, stackoverflow, lyrics previews, while google only does that for wiki. I don't use gmail because of crappy ui, ux and designs. I wouldn't use annoying youtube if dailymotion was not blocked. Translate is only bearable for english. Local maps are way better in navigation/…

So your criticism of google search is that they don't go far enough in appropriating website content?

I'm not native speaker and can't get what "appropriating" means here. But that wasn't a criticism, that was a sharing of observation that, despite of "the fact" that google search is superior and irreplaceable, this is simply not true at least for one guy like me. Discovering that is very hard, unless some default browser in popular linux distro temporarily forces you to non-default default.

Other services were mentioned only to support "completely" part, which is criticism, but not search-related.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#437

Post by Dayshine » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 10:55 AM UTC

ccommsxx wrote: post #352

I've been waiting for a comment on why re-hosting verbatim copies of the original content by google is not considered copyright infringement? How come there seems to be no discussion on this at all?

Because the authors opt-in?

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#438

Post by albedoa » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 11:42 AM UTC

kartickv wrote: post #185

albedoa wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

lol okay thanks for coming back to the court to make us aware that you left the court in case we cared and didn't notice.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#439

Post by IshKebab » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 11:44 AM UTC

corobo wrote: post #374

IshKebab wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well lucky you for having an impossibly great internet connection. Do you seriously never go anywhere with slightly less-than-perfect coverage? Or travel by train? AMP is so much faster than 90% of websites 90% of the time I can see why Google push it so much.

Impossibly great? I'm not saying everything responds instantly but usually there's either signal or there isn't. AMP pages don't work offline just as much as regular internet

Not my experience at all. And even with good signal many heavy news sites take a long time to load.

For example this mobile speed test puts theverge.com at 21 seconds to load! That matches my experience. You can't tell me AMP is as slow as that. It's not even close.

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/theverge.com/Qli1RH8u

In my experience AMP pages load in 2-3 seconds, even with bad signal.

Re: Please Make Google AMP Optional

#440

Post by Aaargh20318 » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 12:16 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #308

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone 4 is an ancient and no longer supported device, it's 7 years old, an eternity in the mobile market. You're comparing a 2010 device to a 2016 one.

People who have perfectly functional iPhones 4 deserve to use the web too. Forcing people to pay huge premium just to keep the same functionality is messed up

> People who have perfectly functional iPhones 4 deserve to use the web too.

An iPhone 4 isn't perfectly functional. It's an outdated device that is no longer getting security updates and as such should not be used on the open web.