I don't understand how Google's AMP business strategies are dissimilar to what Microsoft got in trouble for with Internet Explorer. Would be interested in what someone who is knowledgeable on that topic has to say.
How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
171–180 of 570 posts
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might be just me but I don't get why people on here tend to be critical about DDG's usability. I made the switch a year and a half back and I seriously don't miss anything. There are some niche cases where it doesn't work, you can just use the bangs in those cases. The trade-off, like you said, is well worth it. (Upon typing this, I realize I'm just echoing your comment. Either way, leaving this up to provide one…
DDG is essentially Bing made more private, with a little Yandex. I use it, because I like the privacy, but I don't think they deserve the credit for search result quality.
Neither does google anymore though. Their search quality has gone hill dramatically in the last 4-5 years. It basically correlates with wikipedia no longer being the first result of most searches; it was largely replaced with commercialized garbage. Getting the highest quality, unbiased information you asked for isn't really their first priority anymore and it shows.
I tried DDG when it first came out and found it unacceptable. Currently though, it's totally usable and sometimes better than Google.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#173Everyone should start using Brave or Firefox and DuckDuckGo and stop using all Google things as much as possible.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#174Here's one great takeaway: > Treat the cause: Third-party requests slow down the web > ... > - Google owns 7 of the top 10 most popular third-party calls > ... > So you can see why there must be some kind of internal struggle at Google. They understand the value of a faster web but they also cannot go after the main cause of the slow web. And this is how technology such as AMP gets invented and makes things worse. It…
> STOP USING google SEARCH! USE DUCKDUCKGO! I want to stop using Google, but please realize that DuckDuckGo is only competitive with Google if English is your only language (maybe even only if you're American?). There are loads and loads of people on HN for whom DDG is a poor experience. In my experience DDG is extremely poor for localized results, especially those in other languages than English. Previously I recomm…
Indeed. Few other languages have good Google search alternative - probably only Russian, Japanese, Korean, Czech, Chinese and possibly French (I would imagine that Qwant as French company would have an ok search, but I can't be sure as I don't know French good enough). I would prefer to use just one search engine, but even using Yandex for Russian searches or Baidu for Chinese feels preferable to submitting to octopus that is Google.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might be just me but I don't get why people on here tend to be critical about DDG's usability. I made the switch a year and a half back and I seriously don't miss anything. There are some niche cases where it doesn't work, you can just use the bangs in those cases. The trade-off, like you said, is well worth it. (Upon typing this, I realize I'm just echoing your comment. Either way, leaving this up to provide one…
When I first tried DDG - more than 5 years ago - it was worse. I was unable to find the answers I needed and ended up back at google. I tried off and on a few times over the years, and about a year ago I found it good enough to switch. The few times DDG doesn't find what I need I tried google: it too failed to find what I needed. In short, if you last tried DDG a long time ago try again, it is much better.
> if you last tried DDG a long time ago try again, it is much better.
Very much true. Even moreso as of the last 6 months DDG has been even better for some things, especially if they are political in any way. You'll find some crap sites on DDG but you'll also find what you're looking for. Sometimes I want to find crap sites or non-mainstream stuff, and only DDG surfaces that. I do fear a bit tho once DDG gains more popularity, the SEO games may not be kind to DDG.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Preach brother preach! I made this move myself many months ago & never looked back. There is basically nothing I miss about dropping chrome/ google search. My web experience is indiscernible using Firefox & DDG. One of the only minor things I've had to adjust to is prefixing searches with my local city & state when I'm searching for things in my hometown (Imagine that! My search engine website isn't tracking my physi…
I also switched earlier this year, and my only complaint is that FF's android browser has some weird quirks with how it registers touches, and sometimes doesn't actually click a link when I tap it. However, the value of actual ad-blocking and increased privacy far outweigh the minor frustration of this UI issue.
> FF's android browser has some weird quirks with how it registers touches
It absolutely does, and it drives me up the wall some times. In fact, try visiting this site on Firefox Android and try upvoting something. It's nearly impossible.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#177Here's one great takeaway: > Treat the cause: Third-party requests slow down the web > ... > - Google owns 7 of the top 10 most popular third-party calls > ... > So you can see why there must be some kind of internal struggle at Google. They understand the value of a faster web but they also cannot go after the main cause of the slow web. And this is how technology such as AMP gets invented and makes things worse. It…
I would say also STOP using Google Analytics, Google CDNs, Google fonts, Youtube for hosting your content and all the spying 3rd party services. It's perfectly doable to have a commercial website without them.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#178I worked on amp for a leading newspaper, and everyone who says that amp is about "making the web faster on mobile" is either very naive or doing marketing for google. For publishers, amp is about trying to top the results on google search and capture traffic, it's their only motivation to publish their content using amp, and the only metric they look in order to evaluate the results. Once they have their amp content,…
Of course AMP has other motives than simply making the web faster for mobile, but it also does make the web faster for mobile. I guarantee the AMP version of that paper's mobile website provided a significantly better user experience than the normal version. That is why AMP has been successful, and it's why I will continue to click on AMP links whenever available.
Is giving Google that much control ideal? Of course not, but from a user perspective it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
DDG is essentially Bing made more private, with a little Yandex. I use it, because I like the privacy, but I don't think they deserve the credit for search result quality.
Neither does google anymore though. Their search quality has gone hill dramatically in the last 4-5 years. It basically correlates with wikipedia no longer being the first result of most searches; it was largely replaced with commercialized garbage. Getting the highest quality, unbiased information you asked for isn't really their first priority anymore and it shows. I tried DDG when it first came out and found it un…
Are you saying Google scrapes Yandex and Bing? If not, your response isn't relavant to my comment.
Google may have gotten worse, duckduckgo may have gotten better (I use DDG for most searches, so not sure) but the case for duckduckgo doesn't involve them having a great search team, since they don't have their own index.
Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
#180I agree with all of this, but until google provides a way to appear in the discover box without having AMP-published pages, this is a non-starter for publishers. Ironically, by creating AMP, google has disincentivized publishers from making their canonical pages faster. Publishers hate that google holds them hostage with AMP in this manner, but the situation is what it is, until someone from the Justice Department st…
>Ironically, by creating AMP, google has disincentivized publishers from making their canonical pages faster.
In theory, maybe, but I think history has clearly demonstrated that publishers will not make their pages faster if AMP didn't exist. That's why AMP has been so successful in the first place.