Live data from Hacker News

Google launches new “portal” HTML element

zdnet.com

81–90 of 265 posts

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#81
post #60

Am I reading this wrong, or is Google pushing a fairly complex element with substantial security considerations into HTML exclusively to solve their UX problems with AMP and the pre-load search carousel? Like this seems like it would be a fair amount of work for browsers to implement, and Google is the only party who would benefit.

Isn't this why we have the W3C, so standards don't get made unless multiple people benefit? This seems like Microsoft with IE6 all over again.

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#82
post #48
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're connected to a VPN, install pi-hole on that network and use it as dns. If not, just get blokada from f-droid. It uses 1-3% energy over the day on my phone, but saves around 15% by filtering ads

It’s a real shame you still can’t install a third party content blocker easily in the default browser on Android. Setup a VPN and PiHole for sure works, but my goodness what a lot of effort when simpler approaches exist, even on Safari on iOS... I’m aware other browsers exist that can do this, but this basically forces me to use a different browser on my phone versus my desktop. Such is the reality of using an OS mad…

Fortunately on Android you at least can install another browser - Firefox. Works great - well, most of the time... but using it for a day without extensions makes me appreciate it even more.

EDIT: and there is no reason to use a different browser on the phone and desktop, Firefox is available on desktop too. :P

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#83
post #30

It's kind of funny, how mobile today is a big part of traffic and this will only increase, yet while the mobile experience is already terrible, especially in chrome with no script blocker, google constantly works at making it even worse, with preloading of undesired, external content. Does Silicon Valley not have data caps? I guess they never have bad reception, though. So at least the malicious add that preloaded in…

If you're connected to a VPN, install pi-hole on that network and use it as dns. If not, just get blokada from f-droid. It uses 1-3% energy over the day on my phone, but saves around 15% by filtering ads

This is why Google is pushing DNS-over-HTTPS into Chrome, so that DNS-based ad blocking will no longer work.

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#86
It's going to hurt small sites the most, because sources of traffic like Google, Facebook, and other large sites will eventually stop linking to websites, and load them as previews in frames ("portals") instead.

"No other browser vendor has expressed interest in supporting the Portals" -- but Google is releasing it in Chrome anyway.

It changes the fundamental nature of the WWW as linked documents. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. The only conclusion I can come to about things like AMP and portals is that Google is actively trying to kill the Web.

> "Google engineers hope that their new Portals technology will take over the web and become the standard way in which websites transition between links."

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#87

It's going to hurt small sites the most, because sources of traffic like Google, Facebook, and other large sites will eventually stop linking to websites, and load them as previews in frames ("portals") instead. "No other browser vendor has expressed interest in supporting the Portals" -- but Google is releasing it in Chrome anyway. It changes the fundamental nature of the WWW as linked documents. Embrace, Extend, Ex…

> sources of traffic like Google, Facebook, and other large sites will eventually stop linking to websites, and load them as previews in frames ("portals") instead.

That's already happening to an extent with local AMP caches of outbound links 3rd party links on AMP enabled pages at cloudflare.

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#88
post #60

Am I reading this wrong, or is Google pushing a fairly complex element with substantial security considerations into HTML exclusively to solve their UX problems with AMP and the pre-load search carousel? Like this seems like it would be a fair amount of work for browsers to implement, and Google is the only party who would benefit.

Isn't this why we have the W3C, so standards don't get made unless multiple people benefit? This seems like Microsoft with IE6 all over again.

> This seems like Microsoft with IE6 all over again.

IE6 gave us XMLHttpRequest because they wanted it to build Outlook for the web. That seems like it turned out ok.

In general I think building browser-specific features, seeing what works, and only then standardizing is a much better path than starting with W3C.

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#89
post #7

I don’t like how Google now gets to ‘launch new HTML elements’ as they see fit for their own purposes.

> as they see fit They're doing this in the open through the W3C WICG process [1]. They're not doing this as they see fit. > for their own purposes. Open standards are available for anyone to use and benefit from. That they may have had a use case in mind when defining the spec does not invalidate it; rather, it reinforces it and shows its value. 1: https://wicg.github.io/portals/

> They're not doing this as they see fit.

Sure they are. It's already part of Chromium.

https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/content/browser/portal/...

It's been there since at least last August.

Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element

#90

It's kind of funny, how mobile today is a big part of traffic and this will only increase, yet while the mobile experience is already terrible, especially in chrome with no script blocker, google constantly works at making it even worse, with preloading of undesired, external content. Does Silicon Valley not have data caps? I guess they never have bad reception, though. So at least the malicious add that preloaded in…

It's been a few years, but IIRC I had poor reception on the Google Campus with AT&T. Some spots with poor coverage by SJC too. Probably folks are just always on wifi.
Post reply on HN