Where Am I? NYTimes or Google? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#121

Post by IncRnd » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:10 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #83

IncRnd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google by definition wants to cover-up the domain name that serves amp web pages. Over half of the article discusses that. For your question about fastly, I already answered that in the comment you replied. The fastly CDN requires that the DNS is configured to point at fastly servers. Take a look at https://docs.fastly.com/en/guides/sign-up-and-create-your-fi... under "Start serving traffic through Fastly". Once you’…

Users don't see DNS records. In the old world they click on a nytimes.com link and get something served from a Fastly server, but in the future AMP world they click on nytimes.com and get it served from a Google server. It isn't different.

You bring up an interesting point - if AMP hosting is the same as a CDN, then why do companies use both solutions? "Because they appear the same" doesn't mean they are the same.

AMP requires that you consume other Google products, which requires that additional JS is loaded. When your mobile site doesn't use AMP, Google limits SEO rankings your mobile site can have. Google AMP requires your pages meet Google's Content Policies or they won't host them.

AMP and CDN delivered pages are architected differently and Google imposes restrictions and requirements that don't exist in a CDN.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#122

Post by lazyjones » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

jacob019 wrote: post #43

New York Times and all the other publishers don't have to participate in this crap. It's shameful that they cede authority over their content so easily in exchange for a vuage promise of more visibility. There are so many better ways.

> don't have to participate in this crap

It's a tempting Ponzi scheme.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#123

Post by grey-area » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #5

superasn wrote: post #2

Yes this has been a big issue for a very long time now. Google wants to push a release where it will display the hostname of the amp site even if the content is being served from google.com[1]. Mozilla (and Apple) are strictly against it and thank god for Mozilla. If Google had a bigger market share this would already be something we would have been living with. I'm sure there are better sources for this, but here is…

I don’t really think Google’s plan is that weird. And it would be amazing for decentralized networks, archiving, and offline web apps. Google can’t just serve nyt.com — they can serve a specific bundle of resources published and signed by nyt.com verified by your browser to be authentic and unmodified.

That's not why Google (the corporation) wants this to happen. This is not about technical capabilities but about power.

They cannot be allowed to become the gatekeeper for the web.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#124

Post by rocho » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #115

gregable wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's theoretically possible, the library can be inspected and does not do these things.

Could Google give specific persons different versions or is technically impossible?

It's very possible indeed.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#125

Post by CGamesPlay » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

8organicbits wrote: post #84

CGamesPlay wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Archive.org get a pass on this one? Signed responses mean that there's a very clear way to leverage the browser's domain blacklisting technology to stop the spread of malware, which isn't presently possible for any content mirrors on the web.

Archive.org makes it clear you are on archive.org. The URL shows archive.org. The page content shows archive.org at the top. [1] Google AMP doesn't show Google on the page. Google is pushing for the URL to show the origin site's URL instead of Google[2]. If an attacker poisons a nytimes.com article served by Google AMP, how does a browser's domain blacklisting help? Block google? Block nytimes.com? Neither makes sens…

I believe you might be misunderstanding the idea behind signed exchanges. To be clear, Signed Exchanges are how AMP should have worked all along.

example.com generates a content bundle and signs it. Google.com downloads the bundle and decides to mirror it from their domain. Your browser downloads the bundle from google.com, and verifies that the signature comes from example.com. Your browser is now confident that the content did originate from example.com, and so can freely say that the "canonical URL" for the content is example.com.

Malicious.org does the same thing, and the browser spots that malicious.org is blocked. At this point it doesn't matter if the content came from google.com, because the browser knows that the content is signed by malicious.org and so it originated from there.

Hope this helps clarify. Obviously blacklisting isn't a great security mechanism; my point is just that signed exchanges don't really open any NEW vectors for attack.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#126

Post by rocho » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #83

IncRnd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google by definition wants to cover-up the domain name that serves amp web pages. Over half of the article discusses that. For your question about fastly, I already answered that in the comment you replied. The fastly CDN requires that the DNS is configured to point at fastly servers. Take a look at https://docs.fastly.com/en/guides/sign-up-and-create-your-fi... under "Start serving traffic through Fastly". Once you’…

Users don't see DNS records. In the old world they click on a nytimes.com link and get something served from a Fastly server, but in the future AMP world they click on nytimes.com and get it served from a Google server. It isn't different.

It's very different. And the difference lies in the URL bar. When you use a CDN, your visitors will still see your domain. With Amp, they see google.com.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#127

Post by lazyjones » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:16 AM UTC

What will all those submissive publishers do once Google decides to monetize AMP by injecting their own ads with 0 revenue for the publisher?

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#128

Post by noisy_boy » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

Google has already effectively become the address bar - people go to google.com to go to any other website. Now they are just solidifying it so that you don't even remember the url of a website after a while.

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#129

Post by markosaric » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

Time to share this post one more time:

How to fight back against Google AMP https://markosaric.com/google-amp/

And the original thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733

Re: Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?

#130

Post by bobbydroptables » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #78

bobbydroptables wrote: post #49

AMP seems like a solution in search of a problem. Are people really having trouble with loading speed in 2020? I travel to remote areas in third world countries regularly for work and still don't really have problems loading pages with mobile data. Even if it didn't have all of the problems associated with it I just don't get the point. I don't need Google to repackage a website with less useability. It's frequently…

I lived in Africa and the only internet I had was cellular and by the gb. Amp is a massive improvement over the extremely large web pages we now have to endure. It's also much faster to render, which makes a huge difference on the crappy Android phones that are everywhere. Hell, I'm using a $200 Android phone right now because my iPhone broke and browsing the web is painful on it. And with the terrible hauwei $40 pho…

Fair points, although to your last point, I wouldn't necessarily agree it solves the problem well. AMP makes some websites almost unusable (intentionally disables core functionality) and there's no way to disable AMP except manually re-typing the URL for every page. If its goal is just to serve a smaller page, it is a rough workaround with high costs IMO (often slower loading times, weird performance issues, disabled functionality, less open internet).

I appreciate that not everyone has fast data, but not having data speed to read a basic web page is really becoming the exception, not the norm. Data transmission is getting cheaper and faster and available in more remote places every year.

I wouldn't have a huge problem with AMP if I could opt out. Unfortunately I can't. So despite my blazing fast unlimited plan on a flagship device, I'm getting served crippled pages with degraded performance. It's like I own a Ferrari kitted out with all the extras and Google is saying "here have you tried out this cool bicycle? It has special pedals so you can't go too fast and we reconfigured the handlebars so you don't accidentally do something like steering! It even has a bell. Ting-ting, ting-ting! How cool is that?"

In all seriousness, it is neat if it makes the web more useable for low-connectivity users, but maybe then limit AMP to those places (which are shrinking every year) and don't serve needlessly crippled pages when I'm standing in downtown Amsterdam or Hong Kong at the center of the internet, connected to blazing fast Wifi.