8 ms·

Definitely. I can’t understand why the hell anyone would want to use it anyway. The experience is terrible.

by setquk 8y ago

Filligree 8y ago
It's wonderful when browsing. Pages load in less than half a minute, unlike nearly the entire rest of the internet. Hacker News doesn't need it, but they're nearly unique in having written a good website.
- zzleeper 8y ago
  I abhor it on mobile. I can't navigate away from it easily, it's hard to copy paste annurl to share with others, etc. I wish Chrome had the option to disable it, but of course they don't.
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    > I can't navigate away from it easily eh? You can't hit 'back'?
    - tyingq 8y ago
      It does hijack the back button for carousel loaded pages in a way that's odd. Search for some newsworthy word, say "trump". Click a carousel story. Swipe right (another hijack), and the page loads a story from a competitor to the publisher of the original loaded AMP page. Now, hit the back button. One assumes it would go to the original loaded story, right? Nope, it goes back to Google. Surely that wasn't intentional, right?
      - grogenaut 8y ago
        Going back to google makes sense as my intention is to read the news of the day, not cross reference. Stack behavior would drive me crazy here.
        tyingq 8y ago
        I suppose, but that sort of reinforces the real purpose of AMP. No publisher in their right mind would give up the top part of their page and enable left/right swipe to navigate to competitors, give up the back button control, etc. It's basically a protection racket. Pay up (in control terms), or get pushed down the search results page. Feels a lot like the old "digg bar" (https://moz.com/ugc/die-diggbar-die-die-should-you-kill-the-digg-bar-on-your-website https://moz.com/ugc/die-diggbar-die-die-should-you-kill-the-...)
        grogenaut 8y ago
        For me though, they already have. I don't browse via their nav. I spearfish articles and I'm out. I find most news sites navigation and search garbage and have to resort to site: searches
        criddell 8y ago
        > No publisher in their right mind would give up the top part of their page and enable left/right swipe to navigate to competitors Publishers usually do not make good decisions. That behavior is for users and (IMHO) it's great.
        notahacker 8y ago
        That behaviour is for Google, not for users.
    - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      It constantly breaks the back button and screws up my history.
    - AnssiH 8y ago
      They might also mean "go to the non-AMP version", which is my main issue with AMP. I'd like to get the non-AMP page to e.g. see user comments (if any) which are often omitted from the AMP version, or for posting the non-AMP URL to friends or social media. Sometimes there is an easy way to go to non-AMP page, depending on how you got there, but most of the time for me there is not. For example, this article just appeared on my Google feed on my phone, with no way to open the non-AMP version: https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/wda7jm/where-does-he-get-those-terrible-toys-an-interview-with-ashens-008 https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/wda7jm/where-does-he-... My preferred option would be to have AMP permanently disabled on my phone.
      - freedomben 8y ago
        I couldn't agree more. The problem with AMP is that it isn't possible to disable it. Other than that, I appreciate what Google is trying to do, even if their implementation has a few flaws.
      - yorwba 8y ago
        How to disable AMP permanently on your phone: - stop using Google feed. I can't recommend a one-stop replacement, since I use RSS to follow sites I trust to produce high-quality content and HN to discover new stuff. - stop using other Google products that link to AMP pages. DuckDuckGo is good enough these days. - use Firefox. That in itself might prevent Google search from showing AMP results, if you can't bear to use DDG. At least someone said so two years ago in this thread on Google's product forums https://productforums.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic/news/ixPneB4vpGk https://productforums.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=t... - install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ in Firefox. It still needs to load the AMP page to grab the canonical URL, but then it redirects to the non-AMP version. You can also add an adblocker like uBlock Origin while you're at it. The ability to install addons is what makes Firefox the best mobile browser in my opinion.
        emayljames 8y ago
        I just thought of this great Ffox addon that I use too. AMP pages are not real web pages. They are awful.
  - freedomben 8y ago
    I'm agnostic on AMP, but I very much agree with you that they should add the option to disable. Android is all about choice and user empowerment! That's why I love it
    - cronix 8y ago
      > Android is all about choice and user empowerment! I disagree, strongly. I believe Android is really more about keeping you in the Google ecosystem. So is AMP, so is Chrome. I'm an Android user, but let's not pretend they are really about "choice and user empowerment." That's just the sales pitch. Every single thing Google creates is to collect information on/from us, because that's their revenue model. Selling our data. If you disagree, compare the ad revenue from all of them. Who's is miles ahead? Why? How? You're giving them your data. A LOT of it.
      - freedomben 8y ago
        Agreed regarding ulterior motives (keeping you in their ecosystem). In the excellent book "In The Plex" by Steven Levy, he talks about Google's motivation of essentially building a browser, mobile OS, etc just to ensure that some other party (like Apple) doesn't cut them out and reduce their search/ad domination. I believe protecting search/ads is at the base of their motives (as is, undeniably, vacuuming up tons of data and mining it for ML purposes). But that said, why do so much for open source? Why not keep big things proprietary? Why sell Chromebooks that can be unlocked, put in dev mode, and flashed with FOSS BIOS implementations? Why allow unlocking the bootloader on Nexus and Pixel phones? There's lots of things they do that clearly aren't for the bottom line or just to trap you in their ecosystem (they do offer versions of basically everything for iOS as well, which makes it easier to switch to iPhone even if you are deep in the Google ecosystem). Some of my argument is emotionally based tho, I will admit. After being trapped in Apple's very proprietary, anti-competitive, you-dont-own-it-we-do system, I find the ability to reclaim some freedom (tho not all, they could do better) very nice. So I think our only real disagreement is likely regarding motives.
        pdkl95 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
pacifika 8y ago
Purely to keep the SEO positioning everyone enjoyed before it came into being.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  "Recycling of lost faculties". They take it away from you and then you will bend over and kiss Matt's Butt.
untog 8y ago
It isn't though, really. Page load really is nearly instantaneous. I'm no fan of AMP, but I see the reasons why users like it.
- dep_b 8y ago
  You're right about that, but AMP'ed pages not coming from Google's cache are already really fast. Actually they're only preloading those pages while you're on the results page, which is something they could do as a reward for all pages that have a reduced page weight.
  - lern_too_spel 8y ago
    It is not safe to preload arbitrary web pages. The user will be deanonymized to a site they never visited. It is safe to preload AMP pages by design.
    - manigandham 8y ago
      And yet now you never leave Google's servers when browsing. They know your entire path from search to site and back again.
      - lern_too_spel 8y ago
        Google would have known you clicked on the link anyway. You would prefer the publishers and ad networks track users on pages they never even visit?
        manigandham 8y ago
        AMP pages mean Google has 1st party access to your browser no matter what you browse, which is far more than normal. I didn't state any preferences, and how would sites track you on pages you don't visit?
        8y ago
tyingq 8y ago
Publishers use it because otherwise their stories don't end up in the carousel widget for Google searches. I don't think many of them are actually buying into the AMP hype. They are just backed into a corner.
- frandroid 8y ago
  I can confirm this. Source: working at my country's largest newspaper.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
It only takes a couple business to start using it and always winding up at the top of search before everyone else feels they have to like it or not.
notatoad 8y ago
So you prefer when pages take >10s to load, have interstitial ads covering the content, and have ads that load in while you scroll, causing the content to jump around on you? I'm pretty happy with amp as an alternative to newspapers' awful websites.
- cronix 8y ago
  Reader view in firefox makes it very fast. Like how the web used to be. It just displays the images/text of the actual content and strips everything else out. I immediately hit that button on most sites now, and they load in under 1s (usually way under). It even has a dark mode! No videos playing, no ads changing in sidebars distracting your eyes, no popups making your click through. Just the content you wanted to see. I just wish you could make it the default mode.
  - baobrain 8y ago
    Often times the websites are completely broken under reader mode: images are in the wrong locations, image captions are treated as article text, article text doesn't appear on websites that have awful scrolling behaviour. I completely understand why people have problems with AMP. However, AMP is a drop-in replacement (for the user) and Firefox's reader mode is simply not equivalent, as much as I use it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
tylerl 8y ago
But not QUITE as terrible as the UX of news sites without AMP. Which I suppose was the point.

Definitely. I can’t understand why the hell anyone would want to use it anyway. The experience is terrible.

by setquk 8y ago

Definitely. I can’t understand why the hell anyone would want to use it anyway. The experience is terrible.

It's wonderful when browsing. Pages load in less than half a minute, unlike nearly the entire rest of the internet. Hacker News doesn't need it, but they're nearly unique in having written a good website.

zzleeper 8y ago
I abhor it on mobile. I can't navigate away from it easily, it's hard to copy paste annurl to share with others, etc. I wish Chrome had the option to disable it, but of course they don't.
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  > I can't navigate away from it easily eh? You can't hit 'back'?
  - tyingq 8y ago
    It does hijack the back button for carousel loaded pages in a way that's odd. Search for some newsworthy word, say "trump". Click a carousel story. Swipe right (another hijack), and the page loads a story from a competitor to the publisher of the original loaded AMP page. Now, hit the back button. One assumes it would go to the original loaded story, right? Nope, it goes back to Google. Surely that wasn't intentional, right?
    - grogenaut 8y ago
      Going back to google makes sense as my intention is to read the news of the day, not cross reference. Stack behavior would drive me crazy here.
      - tyingq 8y ago
        I suppose, but that sort of reinforces the real purpose of AMP. No publisher in their right mind would give up the top part of their page and enable left/right swipe to navigate to competitors, give up the back button control, etc. It's basically a protection racket. Pay up (in control terms), or get pushed down the search results page. Feels a lot like the old "digg bar" (https://moz.com/ugc/die-diggbar-die-die-should-you-kill-the-digg-bar-on-your-website https://moz.com/ugc/die-diggbar-die-die-should-you-kill-the-...)
        grogenaut 8y ago
        For me though, they already have. I don't browse via their nav. I spearfish articles and I'm out. I find most news sites navigation and search garbage and have to resort to site: searches
        criddell 8y ago
        > No publisher in their right mind would give up the top part of their page and enable left/right swipe to navigate to competitors Publishers usually do not make good decisions. That behavior is for users and (IMHO) it's great.
        notahacker 8y ago
        That behaviour is for Google, not for users.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    It constantly breaks the back button and screws up my history.
  - AnssiH 8y ago
    They might also mean "go to the non-AMP version", which is my main issue with AMP. I'd like to get the non-AMP page to e.g. see user comments (if any) which are often omitted from the AMP version, or for posting the non-AMP URL to friends or social media. Sometimes there is an easy way to go to non-AMP page, depending on how you got there, but most of the time for me there is not. For example, this article just appeared on my Google feed on my phone, with no way to open the non-AMP version: https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/wda7jm/where-does-he-get-those-terrible-toys-an-interview-with-ashens-008 https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/wda7jm/where-does-he-... My preferred option would be to have AMP permanently disabled on my phone.
    - freedomben 8y ago
      I couldn't agree more. The problem with AMP is that it isn't possible to disable it. Other than that, I appreciate what Google is trying to do, even if their implementation has a few flaws.
    - yorwba 8y ago
      How to disable AMP permanently on your phone: - stop using Google feed. I can't recommend a one-stop replacement, since I use RSS to follow sites I trust to produce high-quality content and HN to discover new stuff. - stop using other Google products that link to AMP pages. DuckDuckGo is good enough these days. - use Firefox. That in itself might prevent Google search from showing AMP results, if you can't bear to use DDG. At least someone said so two years ago in this thread on Google's product forums https://productforums.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic/news/ixPneB4vpGk https://productforums.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=t... - install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ in Firefox. It still needs to load the AMP page to grab the canonical URL, but then it redirects to the non-AMP version. You can also add an adblocker like uBlock Origin while you're at it. The ability to install addons is what makes Firefox the best mobile browser in my opinion.
      - emayljames 8y ago
        I just thought of this great Ffox addon that I use too. AMP pages are not real web pages. They are awful.
- freedomben 8y ago
  I'm agnostic on AMP, but I very much agree with you that they should add the option to disable. Android is all about choice and user empowerment! That's why I love it
  - cronix 8y ago
    > Android is all about choice and user empowerment! I disagree, strongly. I believe Android is really more about keeping you in the Google ecosystem. So is AMP, so is Chrome. I'm an Android user, but let's not pretend they are really about "choice and user empowerment." That's just the sales pitch. Every single thing Google creates is to collect information on/from us, because that's their revenue model. Selling our data. If you disagree, compare the ad revenue from all of them. Who's is miles ahead? Why? How? You're giving them your data. A LOT of it.
    - freedomben 8y ago
      Agreed regarding ulterior motives (keeping you in their ecosystem). In the excellent book "In The Plex" by Steven Levy, he talks about Google's motivation of essentially building a browser, mobile OS, etc just to ensure that some other party (like Apple) doesn't cut them out and reduce their search/ad domination. I believe protecting search/ads is at the base of their motives (as is, undeniably, vacuuming up tons of data and mining it for ML purposes). But that said, why do so much for open source? Why not keep big things proprietary? Why sell Chromebooks that can be unlocked, put in dev mode, and flashed with FOSS BIOS implementations? Why allow unlocking the bootloader on Nexus and Pixel phones? There's lots of things they do that clearly aren't for the bottom line or just to trap you in their ecosystem (they do offer versions of basically everything for iOS as well, which makes it easier to switch to iPhone even if you are deep in the Google ecosystem). Some of my argument is emotionally based tho, I will admit. After being trapped in Apple's very proprietary, anti-competitive, you-dont-own-it-we-do system, I find the ability to reclaim some freedom (tho not all, they could do better) very nice. So I think our only real disagreement is likely regarding motives.
      - pdkl95 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

pacifika 8y ago

Purely to keep the SEO positioning everyone enjoyed before it came into being.

PaulHoule 8y ago
"Recycling of lost faculties". They take it away from you and then you will bend over and kiss Matt's Butt.

untog 8y ago

It isn't though, really. Page load really is nearly instantaneous. I'm no fan of AMP, but I see the reasons why users like it.

dep_b 8y ago
You're right about that, but AMP'ed pages not coming from Google's cache are already really fast. Actually they're only preloading those pages while you're on the results page, which is something they could do as a reward for all pages that have a reduced page weight.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  It is not safe to preload arbitrary web pages. The user will be deanonymized to a site they never visited. It is safe to preload AMP pages by design.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    And yet now you never leave Google's servers when browsing. They know your entire path from search to site and back again.
    - lern_too_spel 8y ago
      Google would have known you clicked on the link anyway. You would prefer the publishers and ad networks track users on pages they never even visit?
      - manigandham 8y ago
        AMP pages mean Google has 1st party access to your browser no matter what you browse, which is far more than normal. I didn't state any preferences, and how would sites track you on pages you don't visit?
        8y ago

tyingq 8y ago

Publishers use it because otherwise their stories don't end up in the carousel widget for Google searches. I don't think many of them are actually buying into the AMP hype. They are just backed into a corner.

frandroid 8y ago
I can confirm this. Source: working at my country's largest newspaper.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

It only takes a couple business to start using it and always winding up at the top of search before everyone else feels they have to like it or not.

notatoad 8y ago

So you prefer when pages take >10s to load, have interstitial ads covering the content, and have ads that load in while you scroll, causing the content to jump around on you? I'm pretty happy with amp as an alternative to newspapers' awful websites.

cronix 8y ago
Reader view in firefox makes it very fast. Like how the web used to be. It just displays the images/text of the actual content and strips everything else out. I immediately hit that button on most sites now, and they load in under 1s (usually way under). It even has a dark mode! No videos playing, no ads changing in sidebars distracting your eyes, no popups making your click through. Just the content you wanted to see. I just wish you could make it the default mode.
- baobrain 8y ago
  Often times the websites are completely broken under reader mode: images are in the wrong locations, image captions are treated as article text, article text doesn't appear on websites that have awful scrolling behaviour. I completely understand why people have problems with AMP. However, AMP is a drop-in replacement (for the user) and Firefox's reader mode is simply not equivalent, as much as I use it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

tylerl 8y ago

But not QUITE as terrible as the UX of news sites without AMP. Which I suppose was the point.