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How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

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Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#281

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

syshum wrote: post #159
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose my feeling is that this is the same kind of reductive reasoning behind the "same thing, both sides" mentality of American politics. Candidate A: Multiple accusations of bribery, frequently posts racist/sexist/Anti-Semitic/Islamophobic memes on his Twitter account, and sponsored multiple pieces of reprehensible legislation during his tenure in office. Candidate B: Refuses to tip more than 10%, ever. One seem…

That is in no way an objective statement on American politics and the comparison of the 2 party system. The idea that American's issues with the Democratic canidates can be compared as "Refused to tip more on 10%", is moronic. It is more like Candidate A: Multiple accusations of bribery, frequently posts racist/sexist/Anti-Semitic/Islamophobic memes on his Twitter account, and sponsored multiple pieces of reprehensib…

> the 2 party system

The two-party system is a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

The real problem is the first-past-the-post voting system. A FTFP voting system will always devolve into a two-party system. If we switched to some sort of ranked choice or approval voting, we'd see more options.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#282

Post by mrtksn »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #261
Kiro wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly don't speak for the users in the developing world with bad connections. Speed is anything but irrelevant.

Google AMP mostly just reduces the latency by pre-loading the pages from Google Search results. That has the side-effect of increasing the traffic on networks using Google Search when Google AMP results come up on the Google Search results, which they probably will given that using Google AMP will improve the site's Google Search ranking. I haven't benchmarked it, so I can't actually speak from anything but wild spec…

I gave it a try. So I searched for "Trump" in Safari mobile, the result page loaded 2.5mb. It loaded a bit more when I clicked on an AMP article and kept loading more as I jump from article to article. It did not load any data without me switching to the next article.

After 10 articles, the transferred data was 28MB. I visited the Guardian's own website and it fetched 3MB.

So, It looks like Google does not preload a huge amount of data.

ps: I use ad-blocking and cleaned the cache.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#283

Post by prophesi »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #150
prophesi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually use firefox for your personal usage? FF Quantum hit the stage two years ago. Performance is now a moot point; they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding. And they've been releasing dope features for the dev tools with almost every release. Check out this especially feature-rich release: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/firefox-71-a-year-end…

> Performance is now a moot point yeah, I even said it >> it is doing great now > they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding. don't let fact get in the way of a feel good opinion, I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...

Welppp, that's a sad chart.

Though I really doubt Firefox's drop in market-share is that tied to performance. The story is more likely to be Chrome/Chromium as the default on Android, the release of Chromebooks, etc. Of course, this is just me interpreting facts with my feel good opinion.

Back to the main point at hand, though, Firefox is obviously not doing well today either according to that chart. But its performance and dev tools are top-notch.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#284

Post by ndarwincorn »

usr1106 wrote: post #259
Avamander wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594876 - 9 years old https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210727 - 4 years old https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1010527 - 6 years old Not to mention the weird random full-blown crashes that occur when I try to use it that I can't reproduce, no point in opening an issue for those.

> Not to mention the weird random full-blown crashes that occur when I try to use it that I can't reproduce, no point in opening an issue for those What platform are you using? I have used FF exclusively for 10+ years on Linux. Ubuntu and OpenSUSE every day. Nouveau and i915 every day. If I said I get 3 crashes per year in the last 3-5 years that would probably be exaggerating.

True for me as well, similar setup (amdgpu, not nouveau, except at work).

The only time FF 'crashes' is when I update while it's running, and even then it gracefully degrades and lets me know I have to restart it. With the 'restore previous session' menu option (an option that only exists in piecemeal and implemented much worse in Chrome), this is a mild inconvenience.

Chromium crashes much more frequently for me on Linux.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#285

Post by 52-6F-62 »

donohoe wrote: post #168

I would like to point out that it is possible to have web pages that load faster than AMP. It has not been made easy but many publishers have figured out (in some cases publishers have web pages that load faster than their AMP ones...) Take a look: https://webperf.xyz I have a number of issues with AMP but I will just mention two: 1. If Google addressed how their ad system was being mis-used (and in many respects as-…

And in the process introduced a whole new layer of cruft and the number of bugs I hear from the web teams trying to implement content with AMP is... it's constant.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#286

Post by deminature »

shadowgovt wrote: post #22

"How to make your sites faster than AMP without using AMP" leaves out "locally cache a copy of your site in a CDN that is geographically close to your users." Which is the actual mechanical part of AMP that makes it technologically interesting / valuable to content providers and countries distant from the creation of most content.

This technology has been available to anyone via Akamai, CloudFront and other edge caching networks for years. It shouldn't require Google threatening AMP to get content publishers to adopt it.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#287

Post by commoner »

christiansakai wrote: post #196

Serious question, what is a free alternative to Google font?

You can still use Google Fonts, but download the font files and host them yourself to prevent your users/visitors from being tracked by Google:

https://google-webfonts-helper.herokuapp.com/fonts

https://github.com/gabiseabra/google-fonts-webpack-plugin

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#288

Post by dbtx »

bduerst wrote: post #219
ctingom wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Maybe it is, but wouldn't I be able to see that in the url?

The AMP standard doesn't need use URL hijacking anymore: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-optimization/amp-real-url...

That is more of the same IMO: yet more code to wipe off a symptom of a problem that we created with more code, as opposed to solving the problem.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#289

Post by latexr »

brianzelip wrote: post #23

Here'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…

> Firefox is awesome.

Not if you’re a macOS user, in particular one that cares for automation. The lack of AppleScript (the bug report that tracks it is old enough to vote) prevents people from considering it as a daily browser. And I’m not just talking about developers. I regularly steer non-technical people away from Firefox because when they ask why my tools—which they want to use—don’t work on Firefox, I have to tell them the truth: I’d like to support Firefox, but I can’t.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#290

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #80
atomi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a sliver of the perversion created when you rely on advertising for profits. Everyone thinks free stuff is great but it means you're the product and an entire global economic ecosystem is being built on that.

I think DDG hit a sweet spot here by relying on Advertizing, BUT not personalizing ads and search results: * ADs are acceptable to me. I just don't want creepy ads that follow me around. And data about my browsing behavior being traded in Ad networks. * Personalize Search Results drive society appart, and lead to radicalization. Not a fan.

> ADs are acceptable to me

I would modify this to unobtrusive ads.

Ads with audio (video without audio doesn't bother me that much unless I'm on mobile, in which case it's eating up my mobile data), ads that pop into the middle of the screen, ads that run any JavaScript, etc., are unacceptable. But a simple banner on the side, even if it's an animated GIF? I'm alright with.

Unfortunately, ad networks decided that their ads are more important than the content I'm trying to view and have brought ad blockers upon themselves. And don't get me started on malvertising...

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