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AMP: the missing controversy

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Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#21

Post by ddmd1 »

JoshMnem wrote: post #17
ddmd1 wrote: post #11

Google can't "simply preload resources of non-AMP pages". Using a CDN means they can get more consistent load times and avoid the inevitable privacy concerns that come with loading 3rd party content the user may never actually click on.

Being forced to load everything you read via Google is worse for privacy. There are already plenty of solutions for blocking 3rd party scripts, like Privacy Badger and umatrix.

Google already has your IP; it's their page. Preloading resources from it's own CDN doesn't tell them anything they don't already know. Preloading resources from someone else's domain would.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#23

Post by 2aa07e2 »

I see AMP as a marketing opportunity for a cheap SEO. If more visitors come to my client's or boss's website and get familiar with it, it's a win situation for me as the programmer/maintainer of the said website.

More users don't equal increased ad revenue with AMP. If ads are not a thing you are selling, you are probably losing free attention if you aren't already exploiting AMP.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#24

Post by jsnell »

> If Google would have a genuine interest in speeding up the whole web on mobile, it could simply preload resources of non-AMP pages as well.

... but they've been doing exactly that for ages. Originally with link rel=prefetch, and later with ever more elaborate schemes which I think culminated with this: https://plus.google.com/+IlyaGrigorik/posts/ahSpGgohSDo

But prefetching based on giving hints to the browser has a bunch of problems. The most obvious one is the one hinted at here: you can have either something ineffective, or something that's effective but complex and not supported across all browsers.

> Not doing this is a strong hint that another agenda is at work, to say the least.

The sinister agenda of wanting things to actually work well.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#25

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ddmd1 wrote: post #21
JoshMnem wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being forced to load everything you read via Google is worse for privacy. There are already plenty of solutions for blocking 3rd party scripts, like Privacy Badger and umatrix.

Google already has your IP; it's their page. Preloading resources from it's own CDN doesn't tell them anything they don't already know. Preloading resources from someone else's domain would.

They could CDN people's non-AMP static content for this purpose though. It's not like their search engine isn't caching a lot of it already anyways.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#26

Post by robin_reala »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #10
benjiweber wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one deactivate the amp preloading?

Use a different search engine.

Or use encrypted.google.com (for the time being at least). Although I’d definitely recommend using a different search engine as a general rule of thumb.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#27

Post by ddmd1 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25
ddmd1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google already has your IP; it's their page. Preloading resources from it's own CDN doesn't tell them anything they don't already know. Preloading resources from someone else's domain would.

They could CDN people's non-AMP static content for this purpose though. It's not like their search engine isn't caching a lot of it already anyways.

That's true. I don't see any reason why they couldn't cache non-amp content with a combination of checking for speed benchmarks and schema markup. When you think about it that way, it seems like they are more concerned with controlling the user experience than they are with speed improvements.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#28

Post by indigochill »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #16
paulddraper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have to participate. It claims to be an open standard; we should participate (or try to participate) in the open standard. The problems AMP solves are real. They will be solved one way or another. I'm hopeful they can be solved in an HTMLite sort of way, not a whatever-Google-does sort of way. So let's think about how to improve AMP, change AMP, evolve AMP, until it becomes something else and something bet…

I make this mistake too, but we need to stop calling it an open standard unless it's handed over to a neutral standards-making body. AMP's solution to the URL problem involves another Google-pushed web standard, webpackage. But the big difference is that webpackage is part of the WICG, a community group under the W3C. That's a real standard, this is not. If AMP not handed over to the W3C, I don't think we can or shou…

I'm not at all up on my tech politics, but I'm curious about your implication that the W3C is neutral. Is that something we can take for granted, given the way they went forward with EME[0]? Otherwise, though, I'm inclined to agree.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/amid-unprecedented-con...

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#29

Post by JoshMnem »

ddmd1 wrote: post #21
JoshMnem wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being forced to load everything you read via Google is worse for privacy. There are already plenty of solutions for blocking 3rd party scripts, like Privacy Badger and umatrix.

Google already has your IP; it's their page. Preloading resources from it's own CDN doesn't tell them anything they don't already know. Preloading resources from someone else's domain would.

Google doesn't have a list of everything you do online unless you're loading resources from their servers after you leave their site. AMP always loads from Google. If you block those 3rd party scripts, AMP pages literally take 8 seconds to load.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#30

Post by mulmen »

pasbesoin wrote: post #19
mulmen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best thing to do is just be the kind of online citizen you want to see. It may be small but it is something you can do yourself. I will be looking for a way to move my online identity away from Google to something I control more directly. I am also going to try replacing my social media activity with email. The web is already decentralized, we just need to use it.

I just had to think a bit in the opposite direction, with respect to email. Archiving some correspondence from other contexts into it. There's a very handy tool for the archiving I'm interested in. But... under U.S. law, online email storage over X... (I forget the exact count, something over 100 days) days old, is open to examination without a warrant. Not that I've anything particular to hide. But moving my persona…

The 100 day warrantless examination is an interesting point. Are you suggesting the government doesn't have access to your correspondence on other platforms? You can at least run your own email server.
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