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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

#81

Post by gm »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #37
nailer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop using chrome. FF is great, but it's also worth pointing out that Edge has all the Google adware removed and better privacy. There was a post from Eric Lawrence detailing all the Google stuff they removed a little while back, it was about 25 separate components. There's telemetry though so make your own mind if you're cool with that.

Call me when Edge is on OS X or Linux (and ideally open-source, like Firefox). I imagine a lot of the hn userbase, myself included, doesn't rely on Windows for their day-to-day work.

LOL

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

#82

Post by brentonator »

soyyo wrote: post #30

I 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,…

I invite you to go to your local Fox/ABC/CBS channel's website and TRY to read an article vs AMP.

AMP is about stopping....that. It's indescribable how horrible these companies have become.

1. Auto-playing ads 2. Scroll-jacking 3. Overlay...after overlay... after overlay. 4. Popover 5. Paywall 6. Popover again for good taste. 7. Oops you scrolled too far better redirect you to another page entirely. 8. You wanted the video version of this article right? Better force you to read the article in 20% of the screen so all of our ads, bars, and video can fit on the page.

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

#83

Post by bluGill »

eyeundersand wrote: post #73
40four wrote: post #44

Earlier 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…

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.

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

#84

Post by C1sc0cat »

thejohnconway wrote: post #4
RobertRoberts wrote: post #2

I think there needs to be a real alternate solution from Google for longer term change. (if Google wants to stay relevant) Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? This seems like the underlying goal behind AMP and Chrome's Lighthouse (site audit tool) any way. This would make a lot of sites fast in the next couple months. But maybe Google doesn't really want that?

> Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd be penalising sites with large amounts of content, that aren't on a CDN. Large images or videos, for example, might be the entire point of the page in the first place. I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest a…

That's a very edge case - its more that front end design and developers need to get their act together and design and build for speed!

Don't use complex but nice images designed for print on the web and not just copypasta god knows what js library.

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

#85

Post by hknd »

ossworkerrights wrote: post #10

I really doubt google will become "irrelevant" anytime soon. What most of us nerds forget is that tech products become popular when they solve real life issues for non technical people. We can sit here and debate all day what protocols are better, and which browse is cooler, and why Google is evil, because it will not become irrelevant anytime soon unless there is a better end user product. Happy bashing Google, Face…

And that's exactly the reason AMP is so popular with end-users. It's fast, and opens instantly on slow networks with your phone. End-users don't know what AMP is, and most don't know that the lightning symbol is AMP. What they know is clicking it gives them fast results, and that's what 99% of people care about.

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

#86

Post by diffeomorphism »

Scarbutt wrote: post #68
brianzelip wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is a point to switching. Mozilla is 10000000x more on our side.

Yes but Mozilla is lazy, badly managed and dumb. They were too late on mobile, and if it weren't for Chrome, Firefox today would need 64GB of RAM to run.

I'd rather have someone "dumb" on my side than someone "smart" actively working against me.

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

#88

Post by 40four »

nobleach wrote: post #52
brianzelip wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is a point to switching. Mozilla is 10000000x more on our side.

From a purely philosophical standpoint, Mozilla has always been the browser of "choice". Its humble beginnings never included "world domination"... and Firefox was an extraordinarily bold attempt to unseat IE. Chrome did a lot of good things in the beginning. It brought web standards to the forefront. The past few years though, the same old tired story has played out. Company gets too much market share, and subsequen…

>Chrome did a lot of good things in the beginning. It brought web standards to the forefront.

To be fair to Google, I think it is important to acknowledge the good things Chrome did in the beginning. I remember when it came out, and most (non - Mac users) were still using IE, it was fantastic! I remember jumping on board immediately. But for me at this point, it has become too much to bear.

At this point they are making so much money from tracking users and selling to advertisers.. who could blame them for continuing to do so? I sure can't, haha.

But after a while, I started realizing all the intrusive & creepy advertisements I was seeing were simply a result of the browser software I chose, and the website I chose do do my searches on, so I started looking for alternatives.

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

#89

Post by iudqnolq »

eyeundersand wrote: post #73
40four wrote: post #44

Earlier 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…

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.

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

#90

Post by buboard »

riku_iki wrote: post #32
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…

It's more about stop earning money, because large userbase still use Chrome and Google Search regardless of individual dev preferences.

it matters a lot though, because devs are an infulential bunch. when developers start using firefox, they optimize for firefox and promote firefox (has happened repeatedly in the past). They're less effective with DDG , because it isnt a great product
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