35 ms·

Google no longer providing original URL in AMP for image search results

1375 points by zenexer 6y ago

tyingq 6y ago
I wonder if it's being A/B tested. I still see the URL, and can click on it from the little "i" icon at the top left. Android, Chrome, USA. Surely a terrible idea though. AMP already has a PR problem.
- epistasis 6y ago
  A/B testing whether or not people have finally gotten tired of fighting for the web. Once they can go for a few months without anybody speaking up, they'll move on to further stages.
  - teraku 6y ago
    It's illegal to do that in the EU, so probably only affects non-EU terretories.
    - bootlooped 6y ago
      A/B testing is illegal in the EU?
      - _pmf_ 6y ago
        Absolutely not.
      - teraku 6y ago
        Not A/B testing, but not showing the original link is illegal in the EU.
- api 6y ago
  AMP is an obvious attempt to embrace/extend/extinguish the open web, so yes it has a PR problem.
- SquareWheel 6y ago
  An alternative possibility is that the original site doesn't have a non-amp alternative, so no original link is included.
infinityplus1 6y ago
Why can't they just give a simple setting which lets users disable AMP? This is the most annoying about being forced to use AMP.
- throwanem 6y ago
  You being able to opt out of AMP would defeat the purpose of AMP.
- inetknght 6y ago
  Who's being forced to use AMP? The user? Remember, the user is the product.
  - levesque 6y ago
    The product is being forced to use AMP.
    - inetknght 6y ago
      Is it? I was under the impression that AMP is opt-in.
      - rpadovani 6y ago
        It is for the website developer. But if a website offers the AMP page, the user cannot skip it
        inetknght 6y ago
        The user is the product. The user doesn't get a say in how the product works. Don't like it? Don't use the site. Or, you know, ask the site to stop using Google.
      - zo1 6y ago
        Opt in like HTTP/S was? Look what happened when Google decided to threaten the ad/ranking tap if websites refused to move to HTTPS.
rsanheim 6y ago
AMP is the worst. It breaks the web and should just die.
- clubsoda 6y ago
  Tell me about it. Our company moved to it and its been horrible with any third party application or marketing pixel. My boss tried to warn VPs of AMP being a nuclear option. Instead of fixing the website they rather put a bandaid over it.
  - ergothus 6y ago
    > Our company moved to it and its been horrible with any third party application or marketing pixel. Isn't that part of the point though? 3rd party marketing and tracking pixels are NOT things that improve the experience or performance for the visitor.
    - AlexandrB 6y ago
      > 3rd party marketing and tracking pixels are NOT things that improve the experience or performance for the visitor. But neither is AMP. This seems like a pure land grab to send more info to Google and less to other adtech companies.
    - thejynxed 6y ago
      In this case you are trading those all for Google's own.
    - clubsoda 6y ago
      Yes, this is true. But when our company (ecommerce) relies heavily on marketing data it becomes an issue. Third party applications that provide UX and UI are impacted as well. The main issue here is executives believed the hype that an AMP website would result in higher revenue and that is not the case. The money spent on making our website AMP'd could have been spent fixing the current system.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Grimm1 6y ago
Google is really showing it's anti-competitive hand here. AMP is a plague.
pixelpoet 6y ago
To think their motto used to be "don't be evil"... pretty insidious in retrospect.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  The thing is, from their point of view they aren't evil; they are "making the web faster", they say (and they're not wrong) that most sites are so full of crap like trackers and adverts that it negatively impacts your browsing experience. This Twitter post costs me 1.6MB of bandwidth and it keeps pinging for more stuff, and that's with an ad blocker enabled. While we're talking just bytes in terms of the main message. Google is selling it as an improvement to the web, but that also says a lot about websites. But this has been Google's strategy for a while now; they push technology that make the web faster and accessible to more people (like Chrome, HTTP/2 and 3, webp/webm, google DNS, google fiber (discontinued), Android, etc) and score goodwill, but at the same time they know if people can browse faster they will run into Google ads more often, earning them more money. AMP is no different; if a site that doesn't even have google ads takes 10 seconds to load, they earn nothing. If the same content takes <1 second to load, WITH google ads, they earn money. And they earn money more often because people can consume more content instead of wait for things to load.
  - ninkendo 6y ago
    Amp-the-standard is not the same thing as amp-the-google-UX. I'd love for sites to adopt AMP, as a standard for web design which leads to very lean sites without content pop-in. That'd be awesome! Give me a little icon next to the search result that says "this site is AMP certified" so I know it'll be fast. But what I don't love, is that Google uses AMP as a trojan horse to keep me inside the google search results as I browse the internet, by: - Rehosting the amp sites on their CDN - Pre-rendering sites I haven't clicked yet to make them load faster - Putting the site in some pop-over div which makes me feel like I'm still in the google results (so I can pop right back quickly and spend more time on google!) - Breaking the swipe gesture - Breaking the URL bar - Breaking my phone's auto-hide for the URL bar - etc etc
psanford 6y ago
AMP results are annoying enough on mobile that I switched my default search engine to duckduckgo on my phone.
- epistasis 6y ago
  I did the same, and am slowly switching over other computers too as I remember. The quality of search result is high enough that I can't tell the difference. Search engines are too important to leave in the hands of one company. Especially a company that, though it was founded as a search engine company, has that search engine as only a tiny part of its people-tracking machine.
  - gravitas 6y ago
    DDG has the ability to save your entire configuration setup ("open links in new window", etc.) in a common URL string - after getting it set up the way you like, go here: https://start.duckduckgo.com/settings https://start.duckduckgo.com/settings On the right is "Show Bookmarklet & Settings", click to open and you'll see your URL to bookmark. As I use standard Firefox/Chrome sync for bookmarks, I just had to save it once in either browser and it shows up on all devices exactly how I like/want.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  For reportedly being there to accelerate the web, AMP pages remain consistently slower and less reliable than the original websites for me.
  - omnifischer 6y ago
    examples? Every site in Germany is 10 X bigger in normal browsing compared to AMP.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      The majority of the times I open an AMP url, it loads the visible content, but I can’t scroll below the fold at all.
nojito 6y ago
I always chuckle to myself when people are quick to attack amazon/facebook as being the real evil companies....while google has been slowly taking over the internet these past 10 years.
- rrmm 6y ago
  They're all companies. They'll take as much as they can. It's just how companies are. Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- acheron 6y ago
  More than 10. Chrome came out in 2008.
dtcaciuc 6y ago
If I tap on the share button on the top right of the AMP frame, it seems that I am able to copy the original URL (although it's the specialized amp.knowyourmeme.com version of the page)
watwut 6y ago
Personally, I hate AMP. Especially when it comes to reddit results.
kittiepryde 6y ago
My unpopular opinion. I love AMP. Mobile internet for me ( maybe on worse devices ), was becoming a non-thing for me. AMP let's me check the news again. My opinion might be because I don't have much understanding of it as a framework, but from a non power user perspective, I've found the UX to be amazing.
- Bahamut 6y ago
  AMP in part made me switch to Apple News - it's buggy and doesn't respect browser history (major usability failure on Google's part).
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    Did you like Google News content better? If not, why wasn't content quality a reason to switch before?
    - ninkendo 6y ago
      The content is essentially the same in both places: they're both just aggregating content from news providers. So you go with the one that has a non-awful UX. Apple news also lets you access paywalled content through a single subscription (News+), which is nice if that's your thing.
  - macintux 6y ago
    Regrettably Apple News will occasionally drop sections of the content it doesn’t know how to render properly, leaving the news article bafflingly incomplete, and usually it’s not obvious that something is missing.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      It is a problem, but depending on what publications you read, how often it happens can vary. The reason is that, like AMP, Apple News only supports a subset of HTML. It's up to the publishers to adhere to those limitations. Some choose not to make a special Apple version or change their main content to be Apple-friendly, so Apple News does what it can to show what it can. It's not ideal, but it's better than being reliant on Google. Also, if you see an article that doesn't look right, there's an option to report that article to Apple. One of the options is "Content missing."
0x006A 6y ago
AMP really has to go away, its a MITM attack on the internet. Google discontinues so many services, why is AMP not one of them yet?
- chadlavi 6y ago
  because it's a useful MITM attack on the internet
  - ryanianian 6y ago
    useful to whom?
    - oblio 6y ago
      To Google, of course :-)
  - zo1 6y ago
    After they took away peoples' ability to MITM their own stuff by forcing HTTPS everywhere under the guise of privacy.
    - wolco 6y ago
      Not everyone joined the https party. The additional overhead on sites isn't justified for sites you don't even log into.
      - tgv 6y ago
        Via http you expose the GET headers, i.e. everyone can see the urls you're browsing, even if you don't login to pornhub.
        AlexandrB 6y ago
        This gets trotted out a lot, but who is "everyone"? At worst it's a bunch of random people in the cafe whose WiFi you're using - but these people don't have the resources to track your activity once you leave the cafe. Otherwise it's just the same rogue's gallery of large corporations interested in adtech/surveillance money: ISPs, device makers, other online service providers. The thing is, none of them have the reach, data collection, and analytics capability of Google. And Google almost certainly gets all this information too, whether you use HTTPS or not (see reCaptcha, Google Analytics). To me, this rationale looks an awful lot like a moat to stifle Google's competition. If collecting "the urls you're browsing" is wrong, why is it ok for Google to do it? And if it's not wrong, why is it somehow better that only Google gets to do it?
TechBro8615 6y ago
How does anyone think this is a good idea? It should be clear which news site I am reading when I'm reading an article. Otherwise, how do I know which bias to apply? On iOS, the title bar says "google.com" whether I'm reading an article from CNN.com or WashingtonExaminer.com. Of all the anti-competitive actions google has taken around search results, AMP is by far the worst. I hope they get smacked down for it in the upcoming anti-trust lawsuit. And kudos to Apple for refusing to change the URL bar like Google does on Android.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  What about the URL bar? For average non techie users, the URL bar isn't particularly helpful. They use page content. And AMP pages do show the original page domain name.
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    The URL bar is helpful to fighting phishing attacks. It's one of the things everyone at my company, including the non-technical people, is askedt to check before entering information. Also techie and non-techie people have been using the same browsers for how many decades now? Aren't the majority of people in many countries on the internet? It seems like the average non-techie users succeeded in figuring things out so far.
    - delouvois 6y ago
      URL are "not particularly helpful for non-techie users" ? How did you even end up here is beyond me.
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Presumably you know that non-technical users, IME, use Google instead of the URL bar. And, if Bing is the default search engine they search Google first, then enter the website name in Google, then click on the first result (without checking the URL). This is the primary way I've seen "non tech" users navigate to a website. Some will use the address bar, but they're in the minority. No matter how much I berate my family they still all do this, so I'm no longer surprised to see it when visiting a client (though I don't do web design/training since last year).
WhyNotHugo 6y ago
This is pretty much what we've been saying would happen since the day AMP was fire presented to the public. I really hope this AMP thing never becomes anything mainstream, it's an atrocious attempt at monopolizing the internet as a whole.
- dgellow 6y ago
  I believe it’s already mainstream :(
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Yep. Google's defacto monopoly powers allows it to create standards and effectively force mainstream acceptance.
  - nothis 6y ago
    I'm seeing AMP in random links non-techy people post all the time, it's depressing and it's become basically 50% of URLs I see posted.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- stevenjohns 6y ago
  Lots of people were also convinced Google wouldn’t go down that route and would be dismissive of criticism. I feel like when a company grows to a certain size, we have to drop the “assume good faith” outlook we give to small businesses and individuals and take on “assume bad faith” instead.
  - pfortuny 6y ago
    As commitees dilute responsibility usually via anonimity (“it is not me, it is the majority”), you should never attribute personal (human) traits to them. Their members deny responsibility: then you must assume the committee is irresponsible (i.e. has no human intent). So: the committee only wants what the papers say. In this case: benefits.
chrischattin 6y ago
I switched all my default search to DuckDuckGo a few months ago because of stuff like this. No regrets here. If you haven't tried it recently, give it a shot. It's gotten tons better in the past few years. Once you get used to it, it's as good as Google search.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  And there are so many nice features, like the !bangs search prefixes, and the ability to store and sync your preferences as a passphrase, without requiring an actual account. The dark scheme is also quite good.
  - simpss 6y ago
    the only gripe i have with DDG is missing 'site: "somewebsite.com"' option. Is there a way to achieve it? I mainly use it for '*.countrydomain' to get results for a specific country.
    - coldpie 6y ago
      I think you want "inurl", see here: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sy...
      - simpss 6y ago
        yes, exactly, thank you. Not as powerful as a specific wildcard, but good enough. sadly, it doesn't work with .something, so 'inurl:.co.uk' doesn't seem to work. Works with 'co.uk' but that's only valuable with longer suffixes. something like 'uk' is a bit too common.
    - chrischattin 6y ago
      "site:somewebsite.com some_search" works just fine on DDG.
      - 6y ago
axegon_ 6y ago
I never looked deep into this but I remember that back in the day there was the "View original image" link in image search and I think they got rid of it because of some EU directive that stated that they can't link an image directly but rather provide a link to the original source, that is the website? Or am I completely wrong?
- arusahni 6y ago
  That was a result of the Getty Images lawsuit [1]. 1: 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...
grey-area 6y ago
Another reason to stop using Google search
lonelappde 6y ago
Correction: The original URL is provided by the Share button on the right. But it's not a link. (To visit it, you'd have to copy and paste back into the browser. You can't share a link to the app you are shared from ) So the URL is available as always, but the link is not.
alextheparrot 6y ago
Started using DuckDuckGo just to avoid AMP, the search results aren’t as good, but at least the results are usable.
alfiedotwtf 6y ago
How long until AMP is stAMPed out with a good ol' Anti-Trust
wombat-man 6y ago
Sharing AMP links is the worst. I probably wouldn't mind if they had a way to provide short links that cardified okay in slack, but lately I've been just sharing the link to the original. if anyone else prefers to share the original link, you can probably find the article by searching on duckduckgo. Using their search more often now these days.
StyloBill 6y ago
I see a lot of hate for AMP, and rightly so. I've been able to get rid of it completely on my Android device with two tricks: - Changed my browser for Kiwi browser : very close to Chrome but with some neat features, one of them being to automatically redirect AMP links to original links - deAMPify is a way to redirect AMP links from any other app than the browser I really wish there was a way to opt-out of AMP as on iOS you're definitely SOL
embracextendetc 6y ago
No surprise here, Google is now full on 90's - style Microsoft, with a twist of SJW thrown in, and hipsters everywhere.
tobyhinloopen 6y ago
AMP is a terrifying solution to an awful problem.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ape4 6y ago
In mobile Google News you don't see URLs either (which bugs me)
typenil 6y ago
For anyone on the fence about using DuckDuckGo instead of Google, if you don't find what you're looking for, it's easy to revert to a Google search by typing "!google" with your query. DDG has improved a lot with time, so I almost never fall back to Google anymore. For some technical searches that DDG can't find, I find codeseek.com is better than both Google and DDG
- fgkramer 6y ago
  !g for the lazy!
  - mthoms 6y ago
    For the even lazier, here's a Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey script that adds a "Google" button to the DDG results page. Just click it if you don't like DDG's results and you'll be taken to Google for the same search term. Source - https://gist.github.com/m-thomson/611d8a91dcc27008dd4fc404d5bc3d94 https://gist.github.com/m-thomson/611d8a91dcc27008dd4fc404d5... Screenshot - https://imgur.com/a/qoJ6xuc https://imgur.com/a/qoJ6xuc Tested in Firefox but should work in Chrome (why are you using Chrome!?).
    - hundchenkatze 6y ago
      That sounds like way more effort than typing !g :P
- npmaile 6y ago
  if typing "!google" is too much of a hassle "!g" also works. you can also do pretty much any letter and it will search another service from bing to yahoo to images to maps to wikipedia to whatever.
  - goblin89 6y ago
    I often use !hn in DuckDuckGo, which redirects to this website’s search.
- 6y ago
benja123 6y ago
I have never liked AMP and I really don't like this. I also find myself wondering if this has any security implications. I mean if AMP effectively disguises the original URL could it not be used for phishing? To be clear I know very little about AMP and if this is the case Regardless it just adds complexity and makes it that much harder to teach people what is an acceptable URL when it comes to email links etc...
- SquareWheel 6y ago
  It uses Signed HTTP Exchanged. https://blog.amp.dev/2018/05/08/a-first-look-at-using-web-packaging-to-improve-amp-urls/ https://blog.amp.dev/2018/05/08/a-first-look-at-using-web-pa...
  - benja123 6y ago
    Thanks!
minikites 6y ago
Google is an evil and destructive force in technology and it genuinely baffles me that people trust their email and smartphone operating systems to be guarded by an advertising company.
markosaric 6y ago
Time to share this one again before it's too late: How to fight back against Google AMP https://markosaric.com/google-amp/ https://markosaric.com/google-amp/ And the original thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733
ironmagma 6y ago
OK, see if we keep using Google for image search, then. Bing was already better at that anyway.
- Aachen 6y ago
  Google gives me slightly better results (sometimes much better, much of the time about equal), but I prefer Bing's interface. If you want to stop using Google, Bing Images is a good option to replace the vast majority of image searches.
CivBase 6y ago
Some website: "I did this" *walks away as Google approaches* Google: ... "I did this" Seriously, though. I understand why the general public isn't pushing back against this, but why don't I see more push back from websites? Websites support AMP for SEO, but at this point they should be trying to redirect users away from AMP and social media sites should be trying to automatically strip AMP from links. And why does the "Redirect AMP to HTML" extension on Firefox have so few users?
noad 6y ago
This is exactly what people speculated would eventually happen when they first announced AMP. Google continues to disappoint and harm the internet in a very predictable way, year after year.
ralmidani 6y ago
I got a new computer (Mac Mini) last week and, as the ritual usually goes, I opened Safari and was about to type “google.com/chrome”, then stopped myself and went to “getfirefox.com” instead. It’s been a while since I gave FF a serious look, and so far I haven’t felt like I’m missing anything. Next up, I need to change my default search engine to DDG. What’s a good privacy-oriented, web-based email service? I’ve heard of ProtonMail but haven’t used it.
- bluehatbrit 6y ago
  Fastmail, protonmail, migadu to name a few. Personally I use migadu because the pricing is perfect for my needs but I've used ProtonMail a bit and been pretty happy with it as well.
- joejoebob 6y ago
  I really like Fastmail
- Aachen 6y ago
  You probably get an email address with your ISP as well. The downside is switching ISPs when you use their domain, but if you're happy with them and don't plan on switching, it might be an option. At work we use Runbox (Norwegian if I'm not mistaken), works well and iirc the pricing is affordable also for individuals. A new ISP in the Netherlands, set up in response to XS4ALL being killed by the parent company, offers email hosting with a custom domain for 50 euros a year (domain included I think). I personally have high expectations there. For more context on what XS4ALL did and stood for aside from privacy, see https://hn.algolia.com/?q=XS4ALL https://hn.algolia.com/?q=XS4ALL Self hosting is also pretty easy if you don't mind getting your hands dirty for an evening or two to set it up. (For me it has been hands-off most of the time, aside from upgrading to new hardware every few years.)
- ravenstine 6y ago
  I've been happily using Protonmail for the past 2 years. It's not going to have all the bells and whistles of Gmail, but I'm a minimalist so it's perfect for me.
- 6y ago
kelvin0 6y ago
Non-web coder here. I searched 'google amp', and I can't really understand what it's supposed to do? Can anyone explain what problem AMP is supposed solve, or what features it brings to the table?
- rantwasp 6y ago
  https://amp.dev https://amp.dev It's supposedly a component framework. supposedly you can build web stuff faster and easier using it. In reality it looks like Google is using it a Trojan horse
  - paddez 6y ago
    It's direction is no-longer owned by Google, but by the OpenJS Foundation, right?
    - rantwasp 6y ago
      yes. we will also all get a 10% raise and a Tesla with our next paycheck.
      - paddez 6y ago
        Yeah - I remember reading it at the time - it's governance is part of the OpenJS Foundation now, rather than Google. https://openjsf.org/blog/2019/10/10/openjs-foundation-welcomes-amp-project-to-help-improve-user-experience-on-the-web/ https://openjsf.org/blog/2019/10/10/openjs-foundation-welcom...
- radium3d 6y ago
  Amp is supposed to reduce file size and script overhead. Its seemingly innocent goal was to speed up page loading on slower mobile devices and reduce bandwidth usage. Google then cached entire amp versions of articles on their servers and never load the original when searchers or Google news app users click to read an article. It means the authors of the articles web pages never get hit by readers. This is I think the main reason why website owners are quite upset.
projproj 6y ago
If you're looking for a decent replacement to images.google.com, I run https://canweimage.com https://canweimage.com. It gets results from Wikimedia Commons. There's also just https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. I built canweimage because Wikimedia Commons used to be harder to navigate (once you searched, you then had to click through categories and subcategories to see image results). Looking at it just now, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore!
mehdix 6y ago
I'd guess they'll go next after DOM manipulation in browsers. It's how we remove ads afterall.
logicallee 6y ago
I Googled "how to turn off amp results" and the top article is a 2017 article[1] that lists some workarounds, such as using duckduckgo or installing DeAMPify, "an Android app that lets you bypass AMP links so you can always load the original link." As far as a first-party way to disable it, the article says: >"Late last year [2016], Google said that it’s working to let users disable AMP in Google search, but there doesn’t seem to be any official kill switch yet. Meanwhile, you can use any of the above workarounds to get around Google AMP pages." Can any Googler chime in on why it would take more than 4 years to figure out the code to turn off a feature like AMP for signed-in users who don't want it? I would have thought that this is something anyone could do in 20 minutes, but I do realize that Google has thousands of highly paid and experienced engineers so maybe there is something that takes a lot longer, that I didn't realize. Could you shed some insight on what makes this difficult? [1] https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-google-amp-google-search-android-iphone/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-google-amp-google-sear...
abraxas 6y ago
For those of us who had no fucking idea what AMP stands for here's the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Mobile_Pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Mobile_Pages
anoraca 6y ago
This is so unfriendly to users. I don't understand the push to obscure URLs. They are sometimes hiding the URLs in search results also which is infuriating. One more reason to use DuckDuckGo.
- dannyw 6y ago
  The push is to get you to stay at Google. They are hurting real bad because people are typing "amazon.com" searching for shopping queries on Amazon now instead of Google; Google hates that. Google wants to be the gatekeeper of the internet. It wants to be the middleman between everything you do online. Might you be using Google Chrome right now? Or Android? ;0
- drawkbox 6y ago
  Another thing that is extremely annoying is the hiding of urls in Chrome. Hiding the protocol and the rest of the url besides the domain. When you go to click up in the url/address bar to change a section of the site the protocol re-appears and messes you up. Or when you click in on some mobile and the whole url disappears and you just wanted to change part of the url. Yes Google there are still people that want hackable urls, I remember when that was something they pushed, clean urls that make sense so you can type in where you are going. AMP might be the thing that actually brings anti-trust, so not needed and very anti-competitive using their monopoly position to stifle competition and innovation rather than extend innovation and compete on product. Google should reward fast sites not band-aid it with an anti-competitive AMP. AMP also creates lots more work for content companies and it is only useful for Google. Essentially content companies are doing Google's work for them. McKinsey and the management consultants have taken over large swaths of Google with stuff like this and AMP. Here's hoping some pirate product people/engineers put up a flag and start returning to product over management metrics.
  - umaar 6y ago
    Yeah the hiding of the protocol in the URL was a pain to deal with. I updated Chrome today and looks like there's a way to turn this off: 1. Enable chrome://flags/#omnibox-context-menu-show-full-urls 2. Right click the address bar 3. Select 'Always show full URLs' Instead of seeing: news.ycombinator.com You'll now see: https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com I made a Tell HN post about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322705
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wortwart 6y ago
Okay, so besides all the "told you so", "Google is evil" and "I hate AMP": Has anybody actually seen the behavior described in this tweet by some anonymous guy? Because I can't confirm it so far.
- ken 6y ago
  Yes, I tried the query in the sample, and it works exactly the same for me here. Are you saying you also get a link to the original URL in the popup?
  - wortwart 6y ago
    I just tested again with Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi and Firefox on Android and can confirm now, too (except for Firefox). First I only checked on desktop where you get to the original website.
thebouv 6y ago
I'd really love to hear the perspective from engineers working on this inside of Google. How do they perceive the work that they're doing? Do they see the harm it causes, or do they only believe in the promise of the good it gives?
- ravenstine 6y ago
  It's been a while since I read the AMP project website, but my impression was that it was written by people who drank a lot of the Kool-Aid. There's probably a lot of people working there who believe that AMP is good, but we can't discount the compliance created by the exorbitant pay and prestige of working at Google.
  - Mindwipe 6y ago
    There also seems to be a healthy amount "oh, well that's more of a Google search issue, not AMP as such so I have nothing to do with that" denialism. I note that Terrence Eden did excellent work getting the concept of "how do users opt out of AMP results" on to the steering group, but it is notable that no work appears to have happened on it for more than a year now.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  When we engaged the AMP team early in it's lifecycle to try and dissuade Google from it's course, it was very apparent that the AMP team, and especially it's lead, Malte Ubl, strongly believe that Google is the web, and AMP is the only way to "save" the web from being app-ized by things like Facebook Instant Articles, which seems to be the existential threat Google is scared of.: https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/solutions/instant-articles https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/solutions/instant-art... Obviously, the AMP team does not, in any way, believe the web needs to be saved from Google.
thdrdt 6y ago
Is AMP popular in the US only? (I am from the Netherlands) As far as I know I have never seen an AMP website. I use DDG as search engine but !g a lot, so I assume I should have stumbled upon an AMP site at least once. But maybe it is also browser related? When I go to amp.cnn.com I get redirected to editions.cnn.com in Firefox.
- mthoms 6y ago
  AMP is "Accelerated Mobile Pages". Are you on mobile?
  - thdrdt 6y ago
    Yes I am.
ibdf 6y ago
There are so many times when using google news app where the story half loads, or the main part of the story is missing... now I can't even go to the actual site and read the new because the link is gone. Goodbye google news.
Aachen 6y ago
Wait, AMP still exists? I haven't seen it for a while now, also in google search results (though I don't do many of those). I thought it was dead after literally everyone thought it was a terrible idea. I suppose I'm happy the google crawler is still banned from my domains. People should use something else if they want good results now. Does uBlock or privacy badger block it? It seems out of scope for those projects so I expect I should see amp links just like anyone else. Or did they kill it in the EU or something? I saw someone from NL wondering the same elsewhere in the thread.
kerkeslager 6y ago
I understand the objections to Google's actions--this is clearly a dick move which is terrible for both users and content creators--but I'm not understanding the AMP hate here. As a user, AMP is great. AMP is a better implementation of the open web than HTML is. It's a (usually) self-contained document that isn't tightly coupled to the server it came from. You can download an AMP document, render it, attach it to an email to a friend, etc., without having to log in or get tracked. Unfortunately AMP is adding ad capabilities, but at least AMP allows you to strip those out fairly trivially. As a website, if you want your users tightly coupled to your server, just don't implement AMP? You literally went through non-negligible effort to implement a feature and now you're surprised and angry that it works the way you implemented it. AMP was always a bad idea if you wanted users to be dependent on your website for your content--this has only made it a slightly worse idea. And by the way, if all you want is credit for your content, it's trivial to add a linked byline to the top of your AMP. I'm not defending Google here. They're an amoral corporation with too much power and shouldn't be used, period. But AMP is fine. EDIT: I can only assume the silent down-voters are people who implemented AMP and are whining that what they implemented works. ;P
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  The silent down-voters are more likely site owners who feel they are being coerced into using AMP in order to compete in Google's search rankings, or users who feel they are being forced to visit AMP sites (which have various usability or privacy concerns) due to these site owners being coerced. (For what it's worth, I up-voted you).
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    Sure--but that's the result of society giving too much power to Google, not the result of AMP.
- dastx 6y ago
  > AMP is a better implementation of the open web than HTML is. Except the results of AMP can be done without AMP. It just requires site owners to not put a bunch of crap on the site. Something that AMP requires you to do. > You can download an AMP document, render it, etc., without having to log in or get tracked Except for the fact that now only Google tracks you. Also, doable without AMP. The hate from many isn't about being a website owner. It's about being a website user. When I click on a link of a website, I expect to go to that website. Not stay on Google's site.
dastx 6y ago
For those who are okay to install addons on your browser, there is Redirect AMP to HTML addon[0] on Firefox. I'm sure there is something similar for Chrome. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/
pgt 6y ago
Google seems to be slowly self-immolating. I've stopped using Google Chrome and Google Search. The only time I use Google Search now is when DuckDuckGo doesn't quite deliver and then I do so using an incognito window. Next step will be to ditch Gmail, and then Google Cloud & Firebase. This might sound silly coming from a lone developer in South Africa, but my experience is that we live in the future, and developers with a mass intuition is rarely wrong. If the trend continues, then in 10 years' time this will be the popular view.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  They're making their money, the US probably will never slap them with any meaningful antitrust lawsuits, and they also see China as a long term investment, so there's no reason to see them as self-immolating. Maybe they're doing so for people in the know, like those of us on HN, but most of the world doesn't see it the way you do. To most of the world, Google is still that innovative company with the friendly looking logo that makes gadgets.
- StreamBright 6y ago
  >> when DuckDuckGo doesn't quite deliver Which is 90% of the time when you are looking for IT questions. Unfortunately. I am hoping they are going to get better, it would be so good to finally stop google search.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    I use DDG exclusively, and many of my searches are technical. I haven't found any cases where DDG fails to find something that Google finds. I'm not suggesting that it never happens, but it's certainly not anywhere close to 90%, or even 9%.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      The main reason I occasionally venture into google is for news -- "!gn something specific" can return better results if I'm looking for a specific article I recall seeing a couple of weeks ago. That said there's also far more rubbish in the google news source, it's far less useful on the whole than DDG, but occasionally it reveals the right result.
bastardoperator 6y ago
https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle.
coronadisaster 6y ago
Haven't tried it, but there is this Firefox extension to help you stay away from AMP: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/
Havoc 6y ago
Google is overdue on regulators cracking down on their BS
fossuser 6y ago
I could buy their reasoning for AMP and site speed, if and only if they make it easy to get the URL. When it first came out you couldn't get the URL either and they added it after people complained. The removal seems to make it clear that it's really about control and keeping things within the confines of their own system.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rkalla 6y ago
Slow trek back to the AOL-style walled garden 2.0 but paved with good intentions?
shrimpx 6y ago
Antitrust suit rumors are swirling and Google is more and more boldly manifesting its despotic tendencies, as if in defiance.
googleimagesguy 6y ago
Hi all! I'm an engineer who worked on this feature. I can't speak to the general concerns about AMP, but I can say that we didn't remove the original url here intentionally - we actually never added it to the Images version. Sorry for the oversight, we're working on bringing it back now!
- SCdF 6y ago
  https://www.ruinedby.design/ https://www.ruinedby.design/ Please read this book. The future internet will thank you.
- king_magic 6y ago
  Are you and your team generally aware of the concerns about AMP? What does the AMP team think about how negatively pretty much the entire world views it?
- robertoandred 6y ago
  Sorry, but the AMP team doesn't have much credibility left. Sounds like you just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
- 8K832d7tNmiQ 6y ago
  ah, the good ol’ goopsie again for the N-th time.
- third_I 6y ago
  Hi team! Is there a way AMP could have an opt-out option? (maybe a permanent setting, maybe a per-search trigger) Ideally at user discretion, but I suppose it must be enabled by the first-party content provider (the website). That would make everyone happier I think. I don't mind AMP some of the time, but sometimes it's undesirable for security concerns notably.
- pembrook 6y ago
  I’ve been trying to get a straight answer out of google for a while on this, wondering if you can clear it up. Does Chrome mobile’s “articles for you” section prioritize AMP content along with Google news? From my experience this seems to be the case. I find it alarming as the only sites that support AMP are often the big clickbait news fear factories. Meanwhile the little sites who never bloated their pages with tracking scripts in the first place end up getting screwed.
zenexer 6y ago
Malte Ubl from Google responded via Twitter:[0] > Just heard from the Image Search team that this is an oversight and they'll add the feature! Sorry about that and thanks for the report! [0]: https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120 https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120
- TheKarateKid 6y ago
  Sounds like classic Google "Oops after oops": https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...
  - zenexer 6y ago
    Yup--check out the follow-up thread. https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881 https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881 Me: When can we expect to see a fix? As of right now, there’s no easy way to visit the original URL. Malte Ubl: I don't have a timeline. The share menu should help getting the underlying URL! Me: I’m sure I don’t need to explain how this looks; regardless of your intentions, it comes across as a fairly hollow response. The issue gets a lot of negative attention on HN, someone from Google responds that it was just an accident and will be fixed, but there’s no fix. Malte Ubl: Sorry, no way to do it in fewer than a couple days. Me: That sounds like a timeline to me. :)
    - chipperyman573 6y ago
      I agree with everything you're saying and every single point you're trying to make here, but, as someone who's been on the other end, your responses are exactly why people hate posting about this stuff publicly. He doesn't have the authority to speak on it (alone) but you trapped him into accidently saying something he wasn't trying to say (in fact he only said it to be nice and reply to your question - which he had no obligation to even acknowledge). There was nothing he could have said that would have made you (or me or any of us on HN) happy, no information he was allowed to give out, but on his own volition he chose to respond to and validate your questions, and you reacted by saying "Aha! I got you now!" That said, it seems likely to me that if this somehow stopped advertising revenue, it would have been fixed before HN even noticed. "No way to fix it for at least a few days" seems very untrue, that department just isn't lead by someone who cares enough about this issue to make it happen. It's not the tweeter's fault, though.
eggsnbacon1 6y ago
and now they own the content. Links will be created to that google URL that last decades. And google can replace the data at that link with whatever they want, whenever they want.
olivierduval 6y ago
Interestingly : could this lead to Google violating copyright laws ? As long as Google is "only" a search engine, referencing other websites, it can get away with copyright laws by stating that he's not infringing, only showing infringing website... But if Google serve the image by itself, with its own domain, doesn't it make him responsible for its own copyright infringement ? Maybe that we be a way to kill the behemoth... or at least this stupid "feature"...
clhodapp 6y ago
This seems like the kind of thing that will be labeled (maybe rightly, maybe falsely) as a "mistake" and fixed... It really seems like if this AMP proxy stuff is going to get forced down our throats, then viewing the original version needs to be integrated at the protocol level and exposed out through the browser UI, not the website (which would also make it possible for non-Google browsers to opt out, as an extra bonus). Otherwise, this sort of thing is just going to keep on happening.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Angostura 6y ago
AMP is the one reason why Duck Duck Go is now my default search engine on mobile.
techbio 6y ago
I’m not an expert in the details of Chrome permissions vs. other browsers, and setting aside for the moment the market power of Google/Alphabet, this seems fairly fixable, along the same lines as email spam or ad tracker networks, and a clear case for “caveat emptor”. How about rewriting any AMP urls in the browser location bar to redirect to the canonical location as an end-user extension, or as an in-content script?
strictnein 6y ago
Another one of those weird "mistakes" that always, always flows towards Google and against everyone else.
PunksATawnyFill 6y ago
What is "AMP?" Critical info that's missing.
dzonga 6y ago
if you're on Android use Firefox as your main browser, if you wanna avoid the shit called AMP. on iOS safari does a little better on showing the url. Changing search engines to say Bing, is not really helpful. Bing on chromium android, still shows AMP pages.
adrianmonk 6y ago
I can kind of understand why Google wants to do AMP. Mobile web performance and all. It probably scores better at some metric that someone believes passionately in (to the exclusion of all else). I don't think it's worthwhile overall, but I can understand it. What I can't understand is why it has to be managed so badly. Just put the damn URL there for people who want it. Allow opt out for people who want that. Super easy. Even if the plan is to cynically use leverage to railroad through adoption of AMP, you're not going to win over the people who despise AMP. There's nothing to be be gained by twisting arms like this. You're only making enemies. Just throw a bone to the people don't like AMP, and the rest of the people will go along with AMP anyway because they don't care.
Mindwipe 6y ago
It is a huge shame that the AMP AC seems to have completely dropped any work on the following focus card on their Github - https://github.com/ampproject/meta-ac/projects/1#card-19420310 https://github.com/ampproject/meta-ac/projects/1#card-194203... Overwhelmingly that's the main user request for AMP. The lack of progress and the fact that it disappeared from the 2020 priorities with no progress speaks volumes.
gtm1260 6y ago
Am I the only one who likes AMP? Like 99% of news websites etc. are so overloaded with crap to the point where it's impossible to read them on mobile. I'm glad to see an AMP link, it means the content will load quickly. I feel like we need a solution that works for everyone, not just news companies and search giants, but users as well!
monadic2 6y ago
Is there any way to get the url out of an image search anymore without going through AMP?
totalFagoogles 6y ago
Fuck google. It's over. The stock market is now proven as a detriment to progress and innovation by fucking up a perfectly good company so that it makes obviously shitty decisions.
googlemustdie 6y ago
In my opinion everyone should do the following: - Install an Ad Blocker, so Google will not be able to make money on your visits and chances you'll get a malware from ads will decrease - If you use Android, you can install Firefox and add uBlock Origin as extension, because Google abuse their power and prevent people from installing Ad blocker on Android. - Stop paying money for Google Ads - Stop using Gmail. There are plenty of alternatives (ex. outlook.com) - Use other search engines (bing.com and yandex.com). I noticed they work in many cases better than Google. For example, yandex.com is much better for semi-legal content which is blocked on Google and not available at all. - Stop using GCP. AWS and Azure are the better cloud providers. - Stop supporting AMP on your website - Don't pay money for integrating Google Maps into your website. There are much cheaper alternatives. - Office 365 is years ahead of Google Docs.
wnevets 6y ago
AMP is hated so much by HN and yet content creators are opting in to use it. They must be getting something out of it.
- Kiro 6y ago
  HN is not representative.
Egoist 6y ago
Out of all Google projects that they put to the grave, they commit to this stupid service.
rjmunro 6y ago
What about Facebook instant articles and Apple News? Are these better than AMP?
pkamb 6y ago
I don't understand why Reddit specifically puts up with AMP. They already have a "good" mobile site. The AMP pages break reddit results and result in the constant annoyance of having to dismiss "Open in App?" banners both in the AMP view and on the mobile site. Everyone hates the AMP page. Why keep it? You already invested a ton of resources in the fast/nice mobile app...
mdrachuk 6y ago
Twitter thread suggests it’s a bug that will be fixed. AMP should die.
cletus 6y ago
Previously I'd considered AMP a storm in a teacup. Now I think it's enough that I'll switch my mobile device to DDG, something I thought I'd never say. For some reason on my iPhone AMP pages just don't fit on the screen. Maybe it's because I have a large default zoom/font. But this actually makes them unreadable because pinch-to-zoom is almost always disabled. I have a bookmark workaround for that but honestly I don't think it's ever worked. Only recently did I discover a workaround for this: on Safari you can force touch to bring up a preview of the original site then click on it to bring that up. If this change breaks that functionality then something has to change. That could be by using a browser to pretend to be a desktop browser or it could be DDG. I'm not sure yet. Why do I, as a user, not have the ability to opt out of this horrible broken mess? I'm all for having Web pages that render fast. I really hope for Google's sake that rendering speed alone is what affects ranking and there isn't some boost for AMP directly because that has anticompetitive written all over it. It would be forcing sites to adopt AMP or suffer downranking (to be fair, companies are typically terrible at designing fast-rendering websites). So if if DDG gets me out of AMP and I can somehow set it so I get Google search results by default (instead of Bing) without using !g on every search then honestly at this point, I'm in.
dontbenebby 6y ago
Seems like a short sighted move since image search is one of the few times I'll jump from DuckDuckGo to Google. Probably won't bother if I can't pull the source image url https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=google+images https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=google+images
votes 6y ago
AMP makes work easier for Google (their indexing and content presentation process). However it's presented as something that makes it easier for us the general public.
doener 6y ago
"Just heard from the Image Search team that this is an oversight and they'll add the feature! Sorry about that and thanks for the report!" https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120 https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120
tripzilch 6y ago
It's not often any more that when I search for an image that Google Image Search is my last stop. I use DDG, so when I need an image I try any of !gi !bi !yi or just !i Generally Google Images are the worst.
tilolebo 6y ago
Is it an iOS thing? I can't reproduce this on my laptop using Firefox
rk9619090 6y ago
ramkumarramkumar96@outlook.com
rk9619090 6y ago
rk9619090@gmail.com

1375 points by zenexer 6y ago

I wonder if it's being A/B tested. I still see the URL, and can click on it from the little "i" icon at the top left. Android, Chrome, USA. Surely a terrible idea though. AMP already has a PR problem.

epistasis 6y ago
A/B testing whether or not people have finally gotten tired of fighting for the web. Once they can go for a few months without anybody speaking up, they'll move on to further stages.
- teraku 6y ago
  It's illegal to do that in the EU, so probably only affects non-EU terretories.
  - bootlooped 6y ago
    A/B testing is illegal in the EU?
    - _pmf_ 6y ago
      Absolutely not.
    - teraku 6y ago
      Not A/B testing, but not showing the original link is illegal in the EU.
api 6y ago
AMP is an obvious attempt to embrace/extend/extinguish the open web, so yes it has a PR problem.
SquareWheel 6y ago
An alternative possibility is that the original site doesn't have a non-amp alternative, so no original link is included.

infinityplus1 6y ago

Why can't they just give a simple setting which lets users disable AMP? This is the most annoying about being forced to use AMP.

throwanem 6y ago
You being able to opt out of AMP would defeat the purpose of AMP.
inetknght 6y ago
Who's being forced to use AMP? The user? Remember, the user is the product.
- levesque 6y ago
  The product is being forced to use AMP.
  - inetknght 6y ago
    Is it? I was under the impression that AMP is opt-in.
    - rpadovani 6y ago
      It is for the website developer. But if a website offers the AMP page, the user cannot skip it
      - inetknght 6y ago
        The user is the product. The user doesn't get a say in how the product works. Don't like it? Don't use the site. Or, you know, ask the site to stop using Google.
    - zo1 6y ago
      Opt in like HTTP/S was? Look what happened when Google decided to threaten the ad/ranking tap if websites refused to move to HTTPS.

rsanheim 6y ago

AMP is the worst. It breaks the web and should just die.

clubsoda 6y ago
Tell me about it. Our company moved to it and its been horrible with any third party application or marketing pixel. My boss tried to warn VPs of AMP being a nuclear option. Instead of fixing the website they rather put a bandaid over it.
- ergothus 6y ago
  > Our company moved to it and its been horrible with any third party application or marketing pixel. Isn't that part of the point though? 3rd party marketing and tracking pixels are NOT things that improve the experience or performance for the visitor.
  - AlexandrB 6y ago
    > 3rd party marketing and tracking pixels are NOT things that improve the experience or performance for the visitor. But neither is AMP. This seems like a pure land grab to send more info to Google and less to other adtech companies.
  - thejynxed 6y ago
    In this case you are trading those all for Google's own.
  - clubsoda 6y ago
    Yes, this is true. But when our company (ecommerce) relies heavily on marketing data it becomes an issue. Third party applications that provide UX and UI are impacted as well. The main issue here is executives believed the hype that an AMP website would result in higher revenue and that is not the case. The money spent on making our website AMP'd could have been spent fixing the current system.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Grimm1 6y ago

Google is really showing it's anti-competitive hand here. AMP is a plague.

pixelpoet 6y ago

To think their motto used to be "don't be evil"... pretty insidious in retrospect.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
The thing is, from their point of view they aren't evil; they are "making the web faster", they say (and they're not wrong) that most sites are so full of crap like trackers and adverts that it negatively impacts your browsing experience. This Twitter post costs me 1.6MB of bandwidth and it keeps pinging for more stuff, and that's with an ad blocker enabled. While we're talking just bytes in terms of the main message. Google is selling it as an improvement to the web, but that also says a lot about websites. But this has been Google's strategy for a while now; they push technology that make the web faster and accessible to more people (like Chrome, HTTP/2 and 3, webp/webm, google DNS, google fiber (discontinued), Android, etc) and score goodwill, but at the same time they know if people can browse faster they will run into Google ads more often, earning them more money. AMP is no different; if a site that doesn't even have google ads takes 10 seconds to load, they earn nothing. If the same content takes <1 second to load, WITH google ads, they earn money. And they earn money more often because people can consume more content instead of wait for things to load.
- ninkendo 6y ago
  Amp-the-standard is not the same thing as amp-the-google-UX. I'd love for sites to adopt AMP, as a standard for web design which leads to very lean sites without content pop-in. That'd be awesome! Give me a little icon next to the search result that says "this site is AMP certified" so I know it'll be fast. But what I don't love, is that Google uses AMP as a trojan horse to keep me inside the google search results as I browse the internet, by: - Rehosting the amp sites on their CDN - Pre-rendering sites I haven't clicked yet to make them load faster - Putting the site in some pop-over div which makes me feel like I'm still in the google results (so I can pop right back quickly and spend more time on google!) - Breaking the swipe gesture - Breaking the URL bar - Breaking my phone's auto-hide for the URL bar - etc etc

psanford 6y ago

AMP results are annoying enough on mobile that I switched my default search engine to duckduckgo on my phone.

epistasis 6y ago
I did the same, and am slowly switching over other computers too as I remember. The quality of search result is high enough that I can't tell the difference. Search engines are too important to leave in the hands of one company. Especially a company that, though it was founded as a search engine company, has that search engine as only a tiny part of its people-tracking machine.
- gravitas 6y ago
  DDG has the ability to save your entire configuration setup ("open links in new window", etc.) in a common URL string - after getting it set up the way you like, go here: https://start.duckduckgo.com/settings https://start.duckduckgo.com/settings On the right is "Show Bookmarklet & Settings", click to open and you'll see your URL to bookmark. As I use standard Firefox/Chrome sync for bookmarks, I just had to save it once in either browser and it shows up on all devices exactly how I like/want.
ashtonkem 6y ago
For reportedly being there to accelerate the web, AMP pages remain consistently slower and less reliable than the original websites for me.
- omnifischer 6y ago
  examples? Every site in Germany is 10 X bigger in normal browsing compared to AMP.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The majority of the times I open an AMP url, it loads the visible content, but I can’t scroll below the fold at all.

nojito 6y ago

I always chuckle to myself when people are quick to attack amazon/facebook as being the real evil companies....while google has been slowly taking over the internet these past 10 years.

rrmm 6y ago
They're all companies. They'll take as much as they can. It's just how companies are. Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
acheron 6y ago
More than 10. Chrome came out in 2008.

dtcaciuc 6y ago

If I tap on the share button on the top right of the AMP frame, it seems that I am able to copy the original URL (although it's the specialized amp.knowyourmeme.com version of the page)

watwut 6y ago

Personally, I hate AMP. Especially when it comes to reddit results.

kittiepryde 6y ago

My unpopular opinion. I love AMP. Mobile internet for me ( maybe on worse devices ), was becoming a non-thing for me. AMP let's me check the news again. My opinion might be because I don't have much understanding of it as a framework, but from a non power user perspective, I've found the UX to be amazing.

Bahamut 6y ago
AMP in part made me switch to Apple News - it's buggy and doesn't respect browser history (major usability failure on Google's part).
- lonelappde 6y ago
  Did you like Google News content better? If not, why wasn't content quality a reason to switch before?
  - ninkendo 6y ago
    The content is essentially the same in both places: they're both just aggregating content from news providers. So you go with the one that has a non-awful UX. Apple news also lets you access paywalled content through a single subscription (News+), which is nice if that's your thing.
- macintux 6y ago
  Regrettably Apple News will occasionally drop sections of the content it doesn’t know how to render properly, leaving the news article bafflingly incomplete, and usually it’s not obvious that something is missing.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    It is a problem, but depending on what publications you read, how often it happens can vary. The reason is that, like AMP, Apple News only supports a subset of HTML. It's up to the publishers to adhere to those limitations. Some choose not to make a special Apple version or change their main content to be Apple-friendly, so Apple News does what it can to show what it can. It's not ideal, but it's better than being reliant on Google. Also, if you see an article that doesn't look right, there's an option to report that article to Apple. One of the options is "Content missing."

0x006A 6y ago

AMP really has to go away, its a MITM attack on the internet. Google discontinues so many services, why is AMP not one of them yet?

chadlavi 6y ago
because it's a useful MITM attack on the internet
- ryanianian 6y ago
  useful to whom?
  - oblio 6y ago
    To Google, of course :-)
- zo1 6y ago
  After they took away peoples' ability to MITM their own stuff by forcing HTTPS everywhere under the guise of privacy.
  - wolco 6y ago
    Not everyone joined the https party. The additional overhead on sites isn't justified for sites you don't even log into.
    - tgv 6y ago
      Via http you expose the GET headers, i.e. everyone can see the urls you're browsing, even if you don't login to pornhub.
      - AlexandrB 6y ago
        This gets trotted out a lot, but who is "everyone"? At worst it's a bunch of random people in the cafe whose WiFi you're using - but these people don't have the resources to track your activity once you leave the cafe. Otherwise it's just the same rogue's gallery of large corporations interested in adtech/surveillance money: ISPs, device makers, other online service providers. The thing is, none of them have the reach, data collection, and analytics capability of Google. And Google almost certainly gets all this information too, whether you use HTTPS or not (see reCaptcha, Google Analytics). To me, this rationale looks an awful lot like a moat to stifle Google's competition. If collecting "the urls you're browsing" is wrong, why is it ok for Google to do it? And if it's not wrong, why is it somehow better that only Google gets to do it?

TechBro8615 6y ago

How does anyone think this is a good idea? It should be clear which news site I am reading when I'm reading an article. Otherwise, how do I know which bias to apply? On iOS, the title bar says "google.com" whether I'm reading an article from CNN.com or WashingtonExaminer.com. Of all the anti-competitive actions google has taken around search results, AMP is by far the worst. I hope they get smacked down for it in the upcoming anti-trust lawsuit. And kudos to Apple for refusing to change the URL bar like Google does on Android.

lonelappde 6y ago
What about the URL bar? For average non techie users, the URL bar isn't particularly helpful. They use page content. And AMP pages do show the original page domain name.
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  The URL bar is helpful to fighting phishing attacks. It's one of the things everyone at my company, including the non-technical people, is askedt to check before entering information. Also techie and non-techie people have been using the same browsers for how many decades now? Aren't the majority of people in many countries on the internet? It seems like the average non-techie users succeeded in figuring things out so far.
  - delouvois 6y ago
    URL are "not particularly helpful for non-techie users" ? How did you even end up here is beyond me.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Presumably you know that non-technical users, IME, use Google instead of the URL bar. And, if Bing is the default search engine they search Google first, then enter the website name in Google, then click on the first result (without checking the URL). This is the primary way I've seen "non tech" users navigate to a website. Some will use the address bar, but they're in the minority. No matter how much I berate my family they still all do this, so I'm no longer surprised to see it when visiting a client (though I don't do web design/training since last year).

WhyNotHugo 6y ago

This is pretty much what we've been saying would happen since the day AMP was fire presented to the public. I really hope this AMP thing never becomes anything mainstream, it's an atrocious attempt at monopolizing the internet as a whole.

dgellow 6y ago
I believe it’s already mainstream :(
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  Yep. Google's defacto monopoly powers allows it to create standards and effectively force mainstream acceptance.
- nothis 6y ago
  I'm seeing AMP in random links non-techy people post all the time, it's depressing and it's become basically 50% of URLs I see posted.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
stevenjohns 6y ago
Lots of people were also convinced Google wouldn’t go down that route and would be dismissive of criticism. I feel like when a company grows to a certain size, we have to drop the “assume good faith” outlook we give to small businesses and individuals and take on “assume bad faith” instead.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  As commitees dilute responsibility usually via anonimity (“it is not me, it is the majority”), you should never attribute personal (human) traits to them. Their members deny responsibility: then you must assume the committee is irresponsible (i.e. has no human intent). So: the committee only wants what the papers say. In this case: benefits.

chrischattin 6y ago

I switched all my default search to DuckDuckGo a few months ago because of stuff like this. No regrets here. If you haven't tried it recently, give it a shot. It's gotten tons better in the past few years. Once you get used to it, it's as good as Google search.

m-p-3 6y ago
And there are so many nice features, like the !bangs search prefixes, and the ability to store and sync your preferences as a passphrase, without requiring an actual account. The dark scheme is also quite good.
- simpss 6y ago
  the only gripe i have with DDG is missing 'site: "somewebsite.com"' option. Is there a way to achieve it? I mainly use it for '*.countrydomain' to get results for a specific country.
  - coldpie 6y ago
    I think you want "inurl", see here: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sy...
    - simpss 6y ago
      yes, exactly, thank you. Not as powerful as a specific wildcard, but good enough. sadly, it doesn't work with .something, so 'inurl:.co.uk' doesn't seem to work. Works with 'co.uk' but that's only valuable with longer suffixes. something like 'uk' is a bit too common.
  - chrischattin 6y ago
    "site:somewebsite.com some_search" works just fine on DDG.
    - 6y ago

axegon_ 6y ago

I never looked deep into this but I remember that back in the day there was the "View original image" link in image search and I think they got rid of it because of some EU directive that stated that they can't link an image directly but rather provide a link to the original source, that is the website? Or am I completely wrong?

arusahni 6y ago
That was a result of the Getty Images lawsuit [1]. 1: 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...

grey-area 6y ago

Another reason to stop using Google search

lonelappde 6y ago

Correction: The original URL is provided by the Share button on the right. But it's not a link. (To visit it, you'd have to copy and paste back into the browser. You can't share a link to the app you are shared from ) So the URL is available as always, but the link is not.

alextheparrot 6y ago

Started using DuckDuckGo just to avoid AMP, the search results aren’t as good, but at least the results are usable.

alfiedotwtf 6y ago

How long until AMP is stAMPed out with a good ol' Anti-Trust

wombat-man 6y ago

Sharing AMP links is the worst. I probably wouldn't mind if they had a way to provide short links that cardified okay in slack, but lately I've been just sharing the link to the original. if anyone else prefers to share the original link, you can probably find the article by searching on duckduckgo. Using their search more often now these days.

StyloBill 6y ago

I see a lot of hate for AMP, and rightly so. I've been able to get rid of it completely on my Android device with two tricks: - Changed my browser for Kiwi browser : very close to Chrome but with some neat features, one of them being to automatically redirect AMP links to original links - deAMPify is a way to redirect AMP links from any other app than the browser I really wish there was a way to opt-out of AMP as on iOS you're definitely SOL

embracextendetc 6y ago

No surprise here, Google is now full on 90's - style Microsoft, with a twist of SJW thrown in, and hipsters everywhere.

tobyhinloopen 6y ago

AMP is a terrifying solution to an awful problem.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ape4 6y ago

In mobile Google News you don't see URLs either (which bugs me)

typenil 6y ago

For anyone on the fence about using DuckDuckGo instead of Google, if you don't find what you're looking for, it's easy to revert to a Google search by typing "!google" with your query. DDG has improved a lot with time, so I almost never fall back to Google anymore. For some technical searches that DDG can't find, I find codeseek.com is better than both Google and DDG

fgkramer 6y ago
!g for the lazy!
- mthoms 6y ago
  For the even lazier, here's a Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey script that adds a "Google" button to the DDG results page. Just click it if you don't like DDG's results and you'll be taken to Google for the same search term. Source - https://gist.github.com/m-thomson/611d8a91dcc27008dd4fc404d5bc3d94 https://gist.github.com/m-thomson/611d8a91dcc27008dd4fc404d5... Screenshot - https://imgur.com/a/qoJ6xuc https://imgur.com/a/qoJ6xuc Tested in Firefox but should work in Chrome (why are you using Chrome!?).
  - hundchenkatze 6y ago
    That sounds like way more effort than typing !g :P
npmaile 6y ago
if typing "!google" is too much of a hassle "!g" also works. you can also do pretty much any letter and it will search another service from bing to yahoo to images to maps to wikipedia to whatever.
- goblin89 6y ago
  I often use !hn in DuckDuckGo, which redirects to this website’s search.
6y ago

benja123 6y ago

I have never liked AMP and I really don't like this. I also find myself wondering if this has any security implications. I mean if AMP effectively disguises the original URL could it not be used for phishing? To be clear I know very little about AMP and if this is the case Regardless it just adds complexity and makes it that much harder to teach people what is an acceptable URL when it comes to email links etc...

SquareWheel 6y ago
It uses Signed HTTP Exchanged. https://blog.amp.dev/2018/05/08/a-first-look-at-using-web-packaging-to-improve-amp-urls/ https://blog.amp.dev/2018/05/08/a-first-look-at-using-web-pa...
- benja123 6y ago
  Thanks!

minikites 6y ago

Google is an evil and destructive force in technology and it genuinely baffles me that people trust their email and smartphone operating systems to be guarded by an advertising company.

markosaric 6y ago

Time to share this one again before it's too late: How to fight back against Google AMP https://markosaric.com/google-amp/ https://markosaric.com/google-amp/ And the original thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733

ironmagma 6y ago

OK, see if we keep using Google for image search, then. Bing was already better at that anyway.

Aachen 6y ago
Google gives me slightly better results (sometimes much better, much of the time about equal), but I prefer Bing's interface. If you want to stop using Google, Bing Images is a good option to replace the vast majority of image searches.

CivBase 6y ago

Some website: "I did this" *walks away as Google approaches* Google: ... "I did this" Seriously, though. I understand why the general public isn't pushing back against this, but why don't I see more push back from websites? Websites support AMP for SEO, but at this point they should be trying to redirect users away from AMP and social media sites should be trying to automatically strip AMP from links. And why does the "Redirect AMP to HTML" extension on Firefox have so few users?

noad 6y ago

This is exactly what people speculated would eventually happen when they first announced AMP. Google continues to disappoint and harm the internet in a very predictable way, year after year.

ralmidani 6y ago

I got a new computer (Mac Mini) last week and, as the ritual usually goes, I opened Safari and was about to type “google.com/chrome”, then stopped myself and went to “getfirefox.com” instead. It’s been a while since I gave FF a serious look, and so far I haven’t felt like I’m missing anything. Next up, I need to change my default search engine to DDG. What’s a good privacy-oriented, web-based email service? I’ve heard of ProtonMail but haven’t used it.

bluehatbrit 6y ago
Fastmail, protonmail, migadu to name a few. Personally I use migadu because the pricing is perfect for my needs but I've used ProtonMail a bit and been pretty happy with it as well.
joejoebob 6y ago
I really like Fastmail
Aachen 6y ago
You probably get an email address with your ISP as well. The downside is switching ISPs when you use their domain, but if you're happy with them and don't plan on switching, it might be an option. At work we use Runbox (Norwegian if I'm not mistaken), works well and iirc the pricing is affordable also for individuals. A new ISP in the Netherlands, set up in response to XS4ALL being killed by the parent company, offers email hosting with a custom domain for 50 euros a year (domain included I think). I personally have high expectations there. For more context on what XS4ALL did and stood for aside from privacy, see https://hn.algolia.com/?q=XS4ALL https://hn.algolia.com/?q=XS4ALL Self hosting is also pretty easy if you don't mind getting your hands dirty for an evening or two to set it up. (For me it has been hands-off most of the time, aside from upgrading to new hardware every few years.)
ravenstine 6y ago
I've been happily using Protonmail for the past 2 years. It's not going to have all the bells and whistles of Gmail, but I'm a minimalist so it's perfect for me.
6y ago

kelvin0 6y ago

Non-web coder here. I searched 'google amp', and I can't really understand what it's supposed to do? Can anyone explain what problem AMP is supposed solve, or what features it brings to the table?

rantwasp 6y ago
https://amp.dev https://amp.dev It's supposedly a component framework. supposedly you can build web stuff faster and easier using it. In reality it looks like Google is using it a Trojan horse
- paddez 6y ago
  It's direction is no-longer owned by Google, but by the OpenJS Foundation, right?
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    yes. we will also all get a 10% raise and a Tesla with our next paycheck.
    - paddez 6y ago
      Yeah - I remember reading it at the time - it's governance is part of the OpenJS Foundation now, rather than Google. https://openjsf.org/blog/2019/10/10/openjs-foundation-welcomes-amp-project-to-help-improve-user-experience-on-the-web/ https://openjsf.org/blog/2019/10/10/openjs-foundation-welcom...
radium3d 6y ago
Amp is supposed to reduce file size and script overhead. Its seemingly innocent goal was to speed up page loading on slower mobile devices and reduce bandwidth usage. Google then cached entire amp versions of articles on their servers and never load the original when searchers or Google news app users click to read an article. It means the authors of the articles web pages never get hit by readers. This is I think the main reason why website owners are quite upset.

projproj 6y ago

If you're looking for a decent replacement to images.google.com, I run https://canweimage.com https://canweimage.com. It gets results from Wikimedia Commons. There's also just https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. I built canweimage because Wikimedia Commons used to be harder to navigate (once you searched, you then had to click through categories and subcategories to see image results). Looking at it just now, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore!

mehdix 6y ago

I'd guess they'll go next after DOM manipulation in browsers. It's how we remove ads afterall.

logicallee 6y ago

I Googled "how to turn off amp results" and the top article is a 2017 article[1] that lists some workarounds, such as using duckduckgo or installing DeAMPify, "an Android app that lets you bypass AMP links so you can always load the original link." As far as a first-party way to disable it, the article says: >"Late last year [2016], Google said that it’s working to let users disable AMP in Google search, but there doesn’t seem to be any official kill switch yet. Meanwhile, you can use any of the above workarounds to get around Google AMP pages." Can any Googler chime in on why it would take more than 4 years to figure out the code to turn off a feature like AMP for signed-in users who don't want it? I would have thought that this is something anyone could do in 20 minutes, but I do realize that Google has thousands of highly paid and experienced engineers so maybe there is something that takes a lot longer, that I didn't realize. Could you shed some insight on what makes this difficult? [1] https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-google-amp-google-search-android-iphone/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-google-amp-google-sear...

abraxas 6y ago

For those of us who had no fucking idea what AMP stands for here's the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Mobile_Pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Mobile_Pages

anoraca 6y ago

This is so unfriendly to users. I don't understand the push to obscure URLs. They are sometimes hiding the URLs in search results also which is infuriating. One more reason to use DuckDuckGo.

dannyw 6y ago
The push is to get you to stay at Google. They are hurting real bad because people are typing "amazon.com" searching for shopping queries on Amazon now instead of Google; Google hates that. Google wants to be the gatekeeper of the internet. It wants to be the middleman between everything you do online. Might you be using Google Chrome right now? Or Android? ;0
drawkbox 6y ago
Another thing that is extremely annoying is the hiding of urls in Chrome. Hiding the protocol and the rest of the url besides the domain. When you go to click up in the url/address bar to change a section of the site the protocol re-appears and messes you up. Or when you click in on some mobile and the whole url disappears and you just wanted to change part of the url. Yes Google there are still people that want hackable urls, I remember when that was something they pushed, clean urls that make sense so you can type in where you are going. AMP might be the thing that actually brings anti-trust, so not needed and very anti-competitive using their monopoly position to stifle competition and innovation rather than extend innovation and compete on product. Google should reward fast sites not band-aid it with an anti-competitive AMP. AMP also creates lots more work for content companies and it is only useful for Google. Essentially content companies are doing Google's work for them. McKinsey and the management consultants have taken over large swaths of Google with stuff like this and AMP. Here's hoping some pirate product people/engineers put up a flag and start returning to product over management metrics.
- umaar 6y ago
  Yeah the hiding of the protocol in the URL was a pain to deal with. I updated Chrome today and looks like there's a way to turn this off: 1. Enable chrome://flags/#omnibox-context-menu-show-full-urls 2. Right click the address bar 3. Select 'Always show full URLs' Instead of seeing: news.ycombinator.com You'll now see: https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com I made a Tell HN post about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322705

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wortwart 6y ago

Okay, so besides all the "told you so", "Google is evil" and "I hate AMP": Has anybody actually seen the behavior described in this tweet by some anonymous guy? Because I can't confirm it so far.

ken 6y ago
Yes, I tried the query in the sample, and it works exactly the same for me here. Are you saying you also get a link to the original URL in the popup?
- wortwart 6y ago
  I just tested again with Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi and Firefox on Android and can confirm now, too (except for Firefox). First I only checked on desktop where you get to the original website.

thebouv 6y ago

I'd really love to hear the perspective from engineers working on this inside of Google. How do they perceive the work that they're doing? Do they see the harm it causes, or do they only believe in the promise of the good it gives?

ravenstine 6y ago
It's been a while since I read the AMP project website, but my impression was that it was written by people who drank a lot of the Kool-Aid. There's probably a lot of people working there who believe that AMP is good, but we can't discount the compliance created by the exorbitant pay and prestige of working at Google.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  There also seems to be a healthy amount "oh, well that's more of a Google search issue, not AMP as such so I have nothing to do with that" denialism. I note that Terrence Eden did excellent work getting the concept of "how do users opt out of AMP results" on to the steering group, but it is notable that no work appears to have happened on it for more than a year now.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
When we engaged the AMP team early in it's lifecycle to try and dissuade Google from it's course, it was very apparent that the AMP team, and especially it's lead, Malte Ubl, strongly believe that Google is the web, and AMP is the only way to "save" the web from being app-ized by things like Facebook Instant Articles, which seems to be the existential threat Google is scared of.: https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/solutions/instant-articles https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/solutions/instant-art... Obviously, the AMP team does not, in any way, believe the web needs to be saved from Google.

thdrdt 6y ago

Is AMP popular in the US only? (I am from the Netherlands) As far as I know I have never seen an AMP website. I use DDG as search engine but !g a lot, so I assume I should have stumbled upon an AMP site at least once. But maybe it is also browser related? When I go to amp.cnn.com I get redirected to editions.cnn.com in Firefox.

mthoms 6y ago
AMP is "Accelerated Mobile Pages". Are you on mobile?
- thdrdt 6y ago
  Yes I am.

ibdf 6y ago

There are so many times when using google news app where the story half loads, or the main part of the story is missing... now I can't even go to the actual site and read the new because the link is gone. Goodbye google news.

Aachen 6y ago

Wait, AMP still exists? I haven't seen it for a while now, also in google search results (though I don't do many of those). I thought it was dead after literally everyone thought it was a terrible idea. I suppose I'm happy the google crawler is still banned from my domains. People should use something else if they want good results now. Does uBlock or privacy badger block it? It seems out of scope for those projects so I expect I should see amp links just like anyone else. Or did they kill it in the EU or something? I saw someone from NL wondering the same elsewhere in the thread.

kerkeslager 6y ago

I understand the objections to Google's actions--this is clearly a dick move which is terrible for both users and content creators--but I'm not understanding the AMP hate here. As a user, AMP is great. AMP is a better implementation of the open web than HTML is. It's a (usually) self-contained document that isn't tightly coupled to the server it came from. You can download an AMP document, render it, attach it to an email to a friend, etc., without having to log in or get tracked. Unfortunately AMP is adding ad capabilities, but at least AMP allows you to strip those out fairly trivially. As a website, if you want your users tightly coupled to your server, just don't implement AMP? You literally went through non-negligible effort to implement a feature and now you're surprised and angry that it works the way you implemented it. AMP was always a bad idea if you wanted users to be dependent on your website for your content--this has only made it a slightly worse idea. And by the way, if all you want is credit for your content, it's trivial to add a linked byline to the top of your AMP. I'm not defending Google here. They're an amoral corporation with too much power and shouldn't be used, period. But AMP is fine. EDIT: I can only assume the silent down-voters are people who implemented AMP and are whining that what they implemented works. ;P

dane-pgp 6y ago
The silent down-voters are more likely site owners who feel they are being coerced into using AMP in order to compete in Google's search rankings, or users who feel they are being forced to visit AMP sites (which have various usability or privacy concerns) due to these site owners being coerced. (For what it's worth, I up-voted you).
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Sure--but that's the result of society giving too much power to Google, not the result of AMP.
dastx 6y ago
> AMP is a better implementation of the open web than HTML is. Except the results of AMP can be done without AMP. It just requires site owners to not put a bunch of crap on the site. Something that AMP requires you to do. > You can download an AMP document, render it, etc., without having to log in or get tracked Except for the fact that now only Google tracks you. Also, doable without AMP. The hate from many isn't about being a website owner. It's about being a website user. When I click on a link of a website, I expect to go to that website. Not stay on Google's site.

dastx 6y ago

For those who are okay to install addons on your browser, there is Redirect AMP to HTML addon[0] on Firefox. I'm sure there is something similar for Chrome. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/

pgt 6y ago

Google seems to be slowly self-immolating. I've stopped using Google Chrome and Google Search. The only time I use Google Search now is when DuckDuckGo doesn't quite deliver and then I do so using an incognito window. Next step will be to ditch Gmail, and then Google Cloud & Firebase. This might sound silly coming from a lone developer in South Africa, but my experience is that we live in the future, and developers with a mass intuition is rarely wrong. If the trend continues, then in 10 years' time this will be the popular view.

ravenstine 6y ago
They're making their money, the US probably will never slap them with any meaningful antitrust lawsuits, and they also see China as a long term investment, so there's no reason to see them as self-immolating. Maybe they're doing so for people in the know, like those of us on HN, but most of the world doesn't see it the way you do. To most of the world, Google is still that innovative company with the friendly looking logo that makes gadgets.
StreamBright 6y ago
>> when DuckDuckGo doesn't quite deliver Which is 90% of the time when you are looking for IT questions. Unfortunately. I am hoping they are going to get better, it would be so good to finally stop google search.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  I use DDG exclusively, and many of my searches are technical. I haven't found any cases where DDG fails to find something that Google finds. I'm not suggesting that it never happens, but it's certainly not anywhere close to 90%, or even 9%.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    The main reason I occasionally venture into google is for news -- "!gn something specific" can return better results if I'm looking for a specific article I recall seeing a couple of weeks ago. That said there's also far more rubbish in the google news source, it's far less useful on the whole than DDG, but occasionally it reveals the right result.

bastardoperator 6y ago

https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle.

coronadisaster 6y ago

Haven't tried it, but there is this Firefox extension to help you stay away from AMP: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/

Havoc 6y ago

Google is overdue on regulators cracking down on their BS

fossuser 6y ago

I could buy their reasoning for AMP and site speed, if and only if they make it easy to get the URL. When it first came out you couldn't get the URL either and they added it after people complained. The removal seems to make it clear that it's really about control and keeping things within the confines of their own system.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rkalla 6y ago

Slow trek back to the AOL-style walled garden 2.0 but paved with good intentions?

shrimpx 6y ago

Antitrust suit rumors are swirling and Google is more and more boldly manifesting its despotic tendencies, as if in defiance.

googleimagesguy 6y ago

Hi all! I'm an engineer who worked on this feature. I can't speak to the general concerns about AMP, but I can say that we didn't remove the original url here intentionally - we actually never added it to the Images version. Sorry for the oversight, we're working on bringing it back now!

SCdF 6y ago
https://www.ruinedby.design/ https://www.ruinedby.design/ Please read this book. The future internet will thank you.
king_magic 6y ago
Are you and your team generally aware of the concerns about AMP? What does the AMP team think about how negatively pretty much the entire world views it?
robertoandred 6y ago
Sorry, but the AMP team doesn't have much credibility left. Sounds like you just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
8K832d7tNmiQ 6y ago
ah, the good ol’ goopsie again for the N-th time.
third_I 6y ago
Hi team! Is there a way AMP could have an opt-out option? (maybe a permanent setting, maybe a per-search trigger) Ideally at user discretion, but I suppose it must be enabled by the first-party content provider (the website). That would make everyone happier I think. I don't mind AMP some of the time, but sometimes it's undesirable for security concerns notably.
pembrook 6y ago
I’ve been trying to get a straight answer out of google for a while on this, wondering if you can clear it up. Does Chrome mobile’s “articles for you” section prioritize AMP content along with Google news? From my experience this seems to be the case. I find it alarming as the only sites that support AMP are often the big clickbait news fear factories. Meanwhile the little sites who never bloated their pages with tracking scripts in the first place end up getting screwed.

zenexer 6y ago

Malte Ubl from Google responded via Twitter:[0] > Just heard from the Image Search team that this is an oversight and they'll add the feature! Sorry about that and thanks for the report! [0]: https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120 https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120

TheKarateKid 6y ago
Sounds like classic Google "Oops after oops": https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...
- zenexer 6y ago
  Yup--check out the follow-up thread. https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881 https://twitter.com/Zenexer/status/1265696063345786881 Me: When can we expect to see a fix? As of right now, there’s no easy way to visit the original URL. Malte Ubl: I don't have a timeline. The share menu should help getting the underlying URL! Me: I’m sure I don’t need to explain how this looks; regardless of your intentions, it comes across as a fairly hollow response. The issue gets a lot of negative attention on HN, someone from Google responds that it was just an accident and will be fixed, but there’s no fix. Malte Ubl: Sorry, no way to do it in fewer than a couple days. Me: That sounds like a timeline to me. :)
  - chipperyman573 6y ago
    I agree with everything you're saying and every single point you're trying to make here, but, as someone who's been on the other end, your responses are exactly why people hate posting about this stuff publicly. He doesn't have the authority to speak on it (alone) but you trapped him into accidently saying something he wasn't trying to say (in fact he only said it to be nice and reply to your question - which he had no obligation to even acknowledge). There was nothing he could have said that would have made you (or me or any of us on HN) happy, no information he was allowed to give out, but on his own volition he chose to respond to and validate your questions, and you reacted by saying "Aha! I got you now!" That said, it seems likely to me that if this somehow stopped advertising revenue, it would have been fixed before HN even noticed. "No way to fix it for at least a few days" seems very untrue, that department just isn't lead by someone who cares enough about this issue to make it happen. It's not the tweeter's fault, though.

eggsnbacon1 6y ago

and now they own the content. Links will be created to that google URL that last decades. And google can replace the data at that link with whatever they want, whenever they want.

olivierduval 6y ago

Interestingly : could this lead to Google violating copyright laws ? As long as Google is "only" a search engine, referencing other websites, it can get away with copyright laws by stating that he's not infringing, only showing infringing website... But if Google serve the image by itself, with its own domain, doesn't it make him responsible for its own copyright infringement ? Maybe that we be a way to kill the behemoth... or at least this stupid "feature"...

clhodapp 6y ago

This seems like the kind of thing that will be labeled (maybe rightly, maybe falsely) as a "mistake" and fixed... It really seems like if this AMP proxy stuff is going to get forced down our throats, then viewing the original version needs to be integrated at the protocol level and exposed out through the browser UI, not the website (which would also make it possible for non-Google browsers to opt out, as an extra bonus). Otherwise, this sort of thing is just going to keep on happening.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Angostura 6y ago

AMP is the one reason why Duck Duck Go is now my default search engine on mobile.

techbio 6y ago

I’m not an expert in the details of Chrome permissions vs. other browsers, and setting aside for the moment the market power of Google/Alphabet, this seems fairly fixable, along the same lines as email spam or ad tracker networks, and a clear case for “caveat emptor”. How about rewriting any AMP urls in the browser location bar to redirect to the canonical location as an end-user extension, or as an in-content script?

strictnein 6y ago

Another one of those weird "mistakes" that always, always flows towards Google and against everyone else.

PunksATawnyFill 6y ago

What is "AMP?" Critical info that's missing.

dzonga 6y ago

if you're on Android use Firefox as your main browser, if you wanna avoid the shit called AMP. on iOS safari does a little better on showing the url. Changing search engines to say Bing, is not really helpful. Bing on chromium android, still shows AMP pages.

adrianmonk 6y ago

I can kind of understand why Google wants to do AMP. Mobile web performance and all. It probably scores better at some metric that someone believes passionately in (to the exclusion of all else). I don't think it's worthwhile overall, but I can understand it. What I can't understand is why it has to be managed so badly. Just put the damn URL there for people who want it. Allow opt out for people who want that. Super easy. Even if the plan is to cynically use leverage to railroad through adoption of AMP, you're not going to win over the people who despise AMP. There's nothing to be be gained by twisting arms like this. You're only making enemies. Just throw a bone to the people don't like AMP, and the rest of the people will go along with AMP anyway because they don't care.

Mindwipe 6y ago

It is a huge shame that the AMP AC seems to have completely dropped any work on the following focus card on their Github - https://github.com/ampproject/meta-ac/projects/1#card-19420310 https://github.com/ampproject/meta-ac/projects/1#card-194203... Overwhelmingly that's the main user request for AMP. The lack of progress and the fact that it disappeared from the 2020 priorities with no progress speaks volumes.

gtm1260 6y ago

Am I the only one who likes AMP? Like 99% of news websites etc. are so overloaded with crap to the point where it's impossible to read them on mobile. I'm glad to see an AMP link, it means the content will load quickly. I feel like we need a solution that works for everyone, not just news companies and search giants, but users as well!

monadic2 6y ago

Is there any way to get the url out of an image search anymore without going through AMP?

totalFagoogles 6y ago

Fuck google. It's over. The stock market is now proven as a detriment to progress and innovation by fucking up a perfectly good company so that it makes obviously shitty decisions.

googlemustdie 6y ago

In my opinion everyone should do the following: - Install an Ad Blocker, so Google will not be able to make money on your visits and chances you'll get a malware from ads will decrease - If you use Android, you can install Firefox and add uBlock Origin as extension, because Google abuse their power and prevent people from installing Ad blocker on Android. - Stop paying money for Google Ads - Stop using Gmail. There are plenty of alternatives (ex. outlook.com) - Use other search engines (bing.com and yandex.com). I noticed they work in many cases better than Google. For example, yandex.com is much better for semi-legal content which is blocked on Google and not available at all. - Stop using GCP. AWS and Azure are the better cloud providers. - Stop supporting AMP on your website - Don't pay money for integrating Google Maps into your website. There are much cheaper alternatives. - Office 365 is years ahead of Google Docs.

wnevets 6y ago

AMP is hated so much by HN and yet content creators are opting in to use it. They must be getting something out of it.

Kiro 6y ago
HN is not representative.

Egoist 6y ago

Out of all Google projects that they put to the grave, they commit to this stupid service.

rjmunro 6y ago

What about Facebook instant articles and Apple News? Are these better than AMP?

pkamb 6y ago

I don't understand why Reddit specifically puts up with AMP. They already have a "good" mobile site. The AMP pages break reddit results and result in the constant annoyance of having to dismiss "Open in App?" banners both in the AMP view and on the mobile site. Everyone hates the AMP page. Why keep it? You already invested a ton of resources in the fast/nice mobile app...

mdrachuk 6y ago

Twitter thread suggests it’s a bug that will be fixed. AMP should die.

cletus 6y ago

Previously I'd considered AMP a storm in a teacup. Now I think it's enough that I'll switch my mobile device to DDG, something I thought I'd never say. For some reason on my iPhone AMP pages just don't fit on the screen. Maybe it's because I have a large default zoom/font. But this actually makes them unreadable because pinch-to-zoom is almost always disabled. I have a bookmark workaround for that but honestly I don't think it's ever worked. Only recently did I discover a workaround for this: on Safari you can force touch to bring up a preview of the original site then click on it to bring that up. If this change breaks that functionality then something has to change. That could be by using a browser to pretend to be a desktop browser or it could be DDG. I'm not sure yet. Why do I, as a user, not have the ability to opt out of this horrible broken mess? I'm all for having Web pages that render fast. I really hope for Google's sake that rendering speed alone is what affects ranking and there isn't some boost for AMP directly because that has anticompetitive written all over it. It would be forcing sites to adopt AMP or suffer downranking (to be fair, companies are typically terrible at designing fast-rendering websites). So if if DDG gets me out of AMP and I can somehow set it so I get Google search results by default (instead of Bing) without using !g on every search then honestly at this point, I'm in.

dontbenebby 6y ago

Seems like a short sighted move since image search is one of the few times I'll jump from DuckDuckGo to Google. Probably won't bother if I can't pull the source image url https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=google+images https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=google+images

votes 6y ago

AMP makes work easier for Google (their indexing and content presentation process). However it's presented as something that makes it easier for us the general public.

doener 6y ago

"Just heard from the Image Search team that this is an oversight and they'll add the feature! Sorry about that and thanks for the report!" https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120 https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1265688067706245120

tripzilch 6y ago

It's not often any more that when I search for an image that Google Image Search is my last stop. I use DDG, so when I need an image I try any of !gi !bi !yi or just !i Generally Google Images are the worst.

tilolebo 6y ago

Is it an iOS thing? I can't reproduce this on my laptop using Firefox

rk9619090 6y ago

ramkumarramkumar96@outlook.com

rk9619090 6y ago

rk9619090@gmail.com