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AMP is a terrible product and an abuse of market position, but the ego behind it means nobody cares what users think, and it will be touted as a success on some
by lawnchair_larry 8y ago
AMP is a terrible product and an abuse of market position, but the ego behind it means nobody cares what users think, and it will be touted as a success on someone's performance review no matter what.
- pohl 8y agoIt's the most user-hostile thing Google has yet done, and I'm including things like Google Wave, the death of Google Reader, and things like removing "view image" from image search results. I loathe getting AMP results. It's always a struggle to get to the real site.
- tjoff 8y agoI thought google were forced to remove 'view-image' from search results? (to appease the site owners)
- petagonoral 8y ago> including things like Google Wave awkward for me. i really liked Wave.
- mort96 8y agoAMP is actually the main reason I switched from Google to DDG on my phone; for some reason, when I switched from an Android phone to an iPhone, I started getting AMP results, and switching search engines was the only way to disable AMP.
- StavrosK 8y agoIs that why I never get AMP results? I've heard about it a lot, but never gotten an AMP page in the results (obviously, in retrospect, because I use DDG). Too bad it's not a "real" standard that everyone can use.
- technion 8y agoThat's correct, DDG is any alternative browser is one of the better answers to this situation.
- tree_of_item 8y agoWhy do you think Google Wave was user-hostile?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jpetso 8y agoIt was meant to replace email, an open standard sporting many interoperable servers and clients, with something that Google controlled, even though it was theoretically federated. After Wave failed, they doubled down on making Gmail into more of a nonstandard product with reduced interoperability (now requiring Gmail API instead of standard IMAP) and increasingly, embrace & extend functionality such as email expiration dates.
- rossjudson 8y agoIt wasn't theoretically federated. It was actually federated. Interop outside Google actually happened. Is something not working with gmail's imap support?
- ce4 8y agoGoogle Talk was also federated for some time. Good old times when we could dream of continents, but it has all drifted away and become islands.
- jpetso 8y agoIssues with Gmail IMAP as voiced by other people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16951363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16951363 https://www.dvratil.cz/2014/06/improved-gmail-integration-in-kde-pim-4-14/ https://www.dvratil.cz/2014/06/improved-gmail-integration-in... https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/gmail/9A5oYELFbu8/7iq7WTVrBAAJ https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/gmail/9A5oYELFbu8/7iq... https://github.com/mscdex/node-imap/issues/71 https://github.com/mscdex/node-imap/issues/71 https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1247-gmail-labels-with-non-ascii-characters-not-working#ticket-1247-7 https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1247... Sure you can still access Gmail through IMAP, but if it works differently enough that using a standard IMAP client feels cumbersome and unfamiliar, is it really anything else than a vehicle to tell people that they should really just use the "better" Google product directly? That said, my original wording of "requiring" the Gmail API was poor and I should have phrased it more accurately.
- ianamartin 8y agoI think marking all http websites as unsafe is tied for first place in the most user-hostile thing ever contest.
- nojvek 8y agoWell http is technically unsafe. How is it user-hostile? You can still browser the page. Just the tiny icon changes near the url.
- woofcat 8y agoI suppose context matters. If I'm browsing a local newspaper the need for SSL isn't nearly as strong as for banking. Also they're moving away from the icon and going to a full "Not Secure" status. Image: https://i.imgtc.com/9DwDQ6r.png https://i.imgtc.com/9DwDQ6r.png
- prophesi 8y agoStill, you're only as secure as your weakest link. An attacker could figure out how to break into your banking account using the information they gathered from you checking your newspaper account.
- charleslmunger 8y agoIs "Not Secure" a false label? Plaintext HTTP is literally not secure against either a passive or active MITM.
- Endy 8y agoIf a site does not require personal information, it does not need SSL to be "secure". Webcomics I read, blogs, etc, do not need to be "secured", as they are not requesting data. They do not need HTTPS.
- rrcaptain 8y agoMITM attacks can also simply be injecting malicious code onto insecure websites. They don't have to be stealing your credit card info to be harmful.
- IshKebab 8y agoIt's not really user-hostile at all. It's great for users. We get easy to identify sites that load quickly on mobile. I waste much less time because of AMP. You could argue it is bad for publishers. But users? Please.
- recursive 8y agoUser-hostile? I'm a user, and to me it seems more like google protecting me from the hostility of publishers. I love it.
- BonesJustice 8y agoI wouldn’t mind it so much if Google’s AMP viewer didn’t steal 3/4” of my browser’s vertical real estate for utterly useless gray chrome.
- zormino 8y agoI wouldn't mind if I had an opt out, I don't even want it to be opt in. just let me turn it off.
- obmelvin 8y ago> removing "view image" from image search results This was the result of a lawsuit by Getty Images - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after-google-removes-view-image-button-bowing-to-getty/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...
- root_axis 8y agoAnother example of user-hostility: I search google for "X using Y" and I get a bunch of results about X where Y is explicitly excluded, i.e. Y with a strikethru and a link saying "actually search for the fucking thing you typed in"... That's a very frustrating UX. I really should give DDG another go.
- endorphone 8y ago"but the ego behind it means nobody cares what users think" Who are the users you're speaking of? The ones on their mobile devices who click AMP links by and large seem to love them. Who hates them, however, are web developers and web exploiters who see it as a threat, a limitation, etc.
- drb91 8y ago> The ones on their mobile devices who click AMP links by and large seem to love them. Really? The main comment I've heard about it (when people mention it at all) is that it messes up the URL. I doubt most people notice anything changed.
- ggggtez 8y agoYou are probably overestimating how much people look at the URL outside of tech circles. As long as the page loads fast, I doubt many people particularly care about the URL bar.
- drb91 8y agoHow do you share the page with someone then?
- mixedCase 8y agoYou copy and paste the nerd character soup at the top of the Google firechrome
- endorphone 8y agoWhen you share a page it shares the canonical URL. When you open it in an external browser it opens the canonical URL.
- drb91 8y ago> When you share a page it shares the canonical URL. By what mechanism? Because copying the URL from the bar does not copy the correct URL, it copies the AMP url.
- plasma 8y agoI hate AMP. Here's my AMP experience on reddit: 1) Click on an AMP link by mistake in google results 2) Get annoyed at the less-functional AMP experience to read reddit (limited replies on AMP page, no JS expansion, etc) It's also super frustrating AMP prevents hold-tap on mobile to open a link in a new window, it just doesn't work. 3) Press the chain link icon to switch to mobile site I've been frustrated and delayed in getting to the mobile site directly.
- nothis 8y agoWhenever I read an article on a random website and it says "google.com" in the url instead of the actual website url, I want to scream at the screen. How on earth can that be a good idea?
- chatmasta 8y agoI’m glad I’m not the only one that experiences this visceral action. I absolutely hate it. I use the URL bar to see what site I am reading (who would have thought?!). When I look in the URL bar and it says “google.com” there, it drives me absolutely bonkers.