5 ms·

While I appreciate fast loading sites as much as anyone, there's something I appreciate even more: getting to the content as fast as possible. It's becoming in

by sakisv 7y ago

While I appreciate fast loading sites as much as anyone, there's something I appreciate even more: getting to the content as fast as possible. It's becoming increasingly common to have all sorts of pop-ups blocking a big part of the screen at best or adding an overlay across the entire body. If only I knew that my click would result in that kind of monstrosity I wouldn't have clicked in the first place. So maybe it would be more useful to show an of how many things we need to close before we get to the content. I think that something like this would also help get us to "a faster web".

robbrown451 7y ago
They say "Our long-term goal is to define badging for high-quality experiences, which may include signals beyond just speed. We are building out speed badging in close collaboration with other teams exploring labelling the quality of experiences at Google" That seems to cover such things.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I'm worried that their definition of "high-quality experiences" will be the same one as typically used in UX on the web - i.e. how much money did the users ultimately made the site, and not whether they actually had a good time.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    I understand a lot of the distrust of Google her one HN, but I also don't think that would be their style. To me, the sites done with Google ads aren't the ones that are the problem, then tend to load fast and not put a bunch of crap in your face. Yeah they track you and such, not denying that or supporting that, but Google generally pushes back against the sort of bad experience you find at so many sites.
musicale 7y ago
So many sites load 8MB of garbage, often from dozens of domains, just to display 8KB of text. Then as soon as you try to start reading, an obnoxious pop-up window appears, demanding that you sign up for their spam list. These are anti-patterns that need to go away.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  Disable JS. Fixes 99% of it. Using a JS enabled browser is downright annoying now.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  If Google actually gave a damn about making the Web a better place, it'd start downranking sites with mailing list popups.
  - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    I thought they did? Some years ago they (and/or Mozilla) offered an addon which you could use to report popups like that - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page-pop-up-reporter/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page-pop-u... comes up. But so far, nothing's been done yet. This is kinda weird to me because one of the reasons why Firefox came to power (and took over a bit chunk of IE's market) was that it had a pop-up blocker. I don't understand why they aren't doing more to block inline pop-ups now.
kaycebasques 7y ago
The Site Engagement Score might be relevant here: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/site-engagement https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/site-en... Presumably a site that is using the dark patterns you've described would have a low SES. Although if you're interacting with the site in order to get past the ads I wonder if that would distort your SES? Then again, if the site is doing annoying things, I'd probably bail quickly, so maybe SES can work after all... Disclosure: I work on Google Web DevRel. I don't know if there's any plans to incorporate SES into this badging initiative. I was just reminded of SES last night because Periodic Background Sync API uses it [1] and it seems relevant to this problem. [1] https://web.dev/periodic-background-sync/#getting-this-right https://web.dev/periodic-background-sync/#getting-this-right
coldpie 7y ago
Install NoScript. The initial whitelisting period is slightly bothersome, but once your common sites are whitelisted, it makes browsing the web _way_ more pleasant. No more fucking "give us your email!" and "this site uses cookies!" popups. It even works decently on Firefox for Android.
auiya 7y ago
This is why I use Safari with reader view enabled automatically.

by sakisv 7y ago

robbrown451 7y ago

They say "Our long-term goal is to define badging for high-quality experiences, which may include signals beyond just speed. We are building out speed badging in close collaboration with other teams exploring labelling the quality of experiences at Google" That seems to cover such things.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
I'm worried that their definition of "high-quality experiences" will be the same one as typically used in UX on the web - i.e. how much money did the users ultimately made the site, and not whether they actually had a good time.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  I understand a lot of the distrust of Google her one HN, but I also don't think that would be their style. To me, the sites done with Google ads aren't the ones that are the problem, then tend to load fast and not put a bunch of crap in your face. Yeah they track you and such, not denying that or supporting that, but Google generally pushes back against the sort of bad experience you find at so many sites.

musicale 7y ago

So many sites load 8MB of garbage, often from dozens of domains, just to display 8KB of text. Then as soon as you try to start reading, an obnoxious pop-up window appears, demanding that you sign up for their spam list. These are anti-patterns that need to go away.

jakeogh 7y ago
Disable JS. Fixes 99% of it. Using a JS enabled browser is downright annoying now.
yellowapple 7y ago
If Google actually gave a damn about making the Web a better place, it'd start downranking sites with mailing list popups.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  I thought they did? Some years ago they (and/or Mozilla) offered an addon which you could use to report popups like that - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page-pop-up-reporter/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page-pop-u... comes up. But so far, nothing's been done yet. This is kinda weird to me because one of the reasons why Firefox came to power (and took over a bit chunk of IE's market) was that it had a pop-up blocker. I don't understand why they aren't doing more to block inline pop-ups now.

kaycebasques 7y ago

The Site Engagement Score might be relevant here: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/site-engagement https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/site-en... Presumably a site that is using the dark patterns you've described would have a low SES. Although if you're interacting with the site in order to get past the ads I wonder if that would distort your SES? Then again, if the site is doing annoying things, I'd probably bail quickly, so maybe SES can work after all... Disclosure: I work on Google Web DevRel. I don't know if there's any plans to incorporate SES into this badging initiative. I was just reminded of SES last night because Periodic Background Sync API uses it [1] and it seems relevant to this problem. [1] https://web.dev/periodic-background-sync/#getting-this-right https://web.dev/periodic-background-sync/#getting-this-right

coldpie 7y ago

Install NoScript. The initial whitelisting period is slightly bothersome, but once your common sites are whitelisted, it makes browsing the web _way_ more pleasant. No more fucking "give us your email!" and "this site uses cookies!" popups. It even works decently on Firefox for Android.

auiya 7y ago

This is why I use Safari with reader view enabled automatically.