Kill Google AMP before it kills the web There's been a good deal of ongoing discussion about Google AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages. Quite a few high-profile web developers have this year weighted in with criticism and some, following a Google conference dedicated to AMP, have cautioned users about diving in with both feet. These, in my view, don’t go far enough in …
It may be due this this little lot:
- https://www.theregister.co.uk/design_picker/4a7827b65d097113835f77713c9af57867dc85ae/javascript/_.js
- https://www.googletagservices.com/tag/js/gpt.js
- https://nir.regmedia.co.uk/?g=c&g=sa&s=c/soft.front
- https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gpt/pubads_impl_118.js
- https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?gdfp_req=1&correlator=2604313996165120&output=json_html&callback=googletag.impl.pubads.setAdContentsBySlotForSync&impl=ss&json_a=1&eid=108809080%2C108809103&sc=1&sfv=1-0-8&iu_parts=6978%2Creg_software%2Cfront&enc_prev_ius=%2F0%2F1%2F2%2C%2F0%2F1%2F2%2C%2F0%2F1%2F2%2C%2F0%2F1%2F2%2C%2F0%2F1%2F2%2C%2F0%2F1%2F2&prev_iu_szs=1x1%2C970x250%7C970x90%7C728x90%2C300x600%7C300x250%7C300x1050%2C300x250%7C300x100%2C300x250%7C300x1%2C728x90%7C970x90&ists=32&prev_scp=pos%3Dtop%26unitname%3Dwww_oop%26unitnum%3D1%7Cpos%3Dtop%26unitname%3Dwww_top_leader%26unitnum%3D2%7Cpos%3Dtop%26unitname%3Dwww_top_mpu%26unitnum%3D3%7Cpos%3Dmid%26unitname%3Dwww_mid_mpu%26unitnum%3D4%7Cpos%3Dbtm%26unitname%3Dwww_btm_mpu%26unitnum%3D5%7Cpos%3Dbtm%26unitname%3Dwww_btm_leader%26unitnum%3D6&cust_params=test%3D0%26li%3Dnull%26uid%3Dnull%26sc%3D1%26bwidth%3D10%26pid%3D188190%26pt%3Da%26axc%3Dnull%26kw%3Dgoogle%252Cjavascript%26cat%3Dcomment%26tag%3Dnull%26author%3DScott%252520Gilbertson%26year%3D2017%26nsfw%3Dnull%26vid%3Dnull%26ar%3Dfalse%26ct%3Ds-sync%26vc%3Dsoft.front&cookie_enabled=1&abxe=1&lmt=1495184423&dt=1495184423485&cc=3&frm=20&biw=989&bih=672&oid=3&adxs=0%2C-9%2C-9%2C-9%2C-9%2C-9&adys=35%2C-9%2C-9%2C-9%2C-9%2C-9&adks=2661161309%2C1687740957%2C92516220%2C1854142296%2C2530054159%2C3376615318&gut=v2&ifi=1&u_tz=-240&u_his=2&u_java=true&u_h=768&u_w=1024&u_ah=768&u_aw=1024&u_cd=24&u_nplug=6&u_nmime=8&u_sd=1&flash=18.0.0&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2017%2F05%2F19%2Fopen_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad&dssz=7&icsg=232&std=0&csl=46&vrg=118&vrp=118&ga_vid=437314812.1495184424&ga_sid=1495184424&ga_hid=1621936060
- https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/osd.js
- https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/activeview/osd_listener.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/client/ext/m_window_focus_non_hydra.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-8/js/ext.js
- https://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-8/js/ext.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/activeview/osd_listener.js
- https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js
- https://s.dpmsrv.com/dpm_812ed4562d3211363a7b813aa9cd2cf042b63bb2.min.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/abg.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/client/ext/m_js_controller.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/client/ext/m_window_focus_non_hydra.js
- https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20170517/r20110914/activeview/osd_listener.js
- https://a.dpmsrv.com/dpmpxl/index.php?id=480082361948883117&q=xImp&v=1.x&cl=97&pixelIndex=0&r=222544&tzOffset=240&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2017%2F05%2F19%2Fopen_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad&_=1495184425193
- https://a.dpmsrv.com/dpmpxl/index.php?q=xSeg&v=1.x&ep%5Bids%5D=1501713&cl=97&pixelIndex=0&r=466573&tzOffset=240&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2017%2F05%2F19%2Fopen_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad&id=480082361948883117&_=1495184425195
https://servedby.flashtalking.com/imp/8/75420;2411227;201;js;Register;TINTRIDemendGenAwareness18Q1ODisplayDTheRegisterAudienceBNNAEN300x250xMPUvideo/?ftx=&fty=&ftadz=&ftscw=&ft_custom=&ftOBA=1&ft_agentEnv=0&ft_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2017%2F05%2F19%2Fopen_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad&cachebuster=223384.67789813876
- https://cdn.flashtalking.com/xre/241/2411227/1777171/js/j-2411227-1777171.js
- https://servedby.flashtalking.com/imp/8/75420;2411229;201;js;Register;TINTRIDemendGenAwareness18Q1ODisplayDTheRegisterAudienceBNNAEN300x250xROSAV/?ftx=&fty=&ftadz=&ftscw=&ft_custom=&ftOBA=1&ft_ifb=1&ft_domain=www.theregister.co.uk&ft_agentEnv=0&ft_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2017%2F05%2F19%2Fopen_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad&cachebuster=763179.7129288316
- https://cdn.flashtalking.com/xre/241/2411229/1777171/js/j-2411229-1777171.js
By making a custom Adblock filter you can simply remove those painfull idiot images by blocking everything from regmedia.co.uk.
In the old days, before this nonsense, I didn't have to block anything from elReg, it was all relevant.
Why does everything have to be so shouty these days, turned up to 11?
As usual, look at The Top, where decisions are made...
@elReg
How about making comments editable for 30 minutes, rather than just ten?
Thoughtful comments cannot be rushed...
These comments are supposed to be about slagging Google. But since you started it...
The thing that annoys me about El Reg comments pages, much as I love the content, is the Web 1.54382 design of voting. I click on a thumb of the appropriate direction, start reading the next comment, then (after several seconds) the page jumps up to tell me that my vote has been added. Really annoying. And, of course, I can't vote on the next article until the first vote has registered.
Ironically, the best example I can give on how to do it right is Google's youtube. It handles voting of comments better, by changing the colour of the thumb. And faster.
And if you really have to insert text about "Your vote has been..." then see how youtube handles adding videos to your watch list. An overlay message stating the video has been added appears at a fixed place relative to the window (rather than relative to the video), hangs around briefly, then vanishes. And the activation area for adding to the watch list changes from a clock to a tick.
So sorry, guys, your content is awesome and your web design is pretty good, but it could be improved. That's not just speculation on my part because I can point you to examples. Embrace Web 2.0 rather than sticking with Web 1.54382.
The thing that annoys me about El Reg comments pages, much as I love the content, is the Web 1.54382 design of voting.
Oh that I could give you a trillion upvotes! (which thankfully I can't as that would take a trillion full page reloads, and I doubt the entire world has the bandwidth for that!)
When at home I have to think more about voting, as I don't have that much bandwidth.
While on voting.. Can we have a "remove my vote" as opposed to "change it to the opposite"? Because of the delayed page bouncing stuff I often have read another post or two and want to up or downvote one post and ignore another. But the page bounces and the wrong post gets the click.. Do I change my vote to a + when I really didn't want a vote, or do I leave someone with a - when I didn't feel it was deserved? Would be nice if clicking the opposite button would simply remove the first vote.
Would also love to see a colour change on things I've already voted on. Sometimes I might come back to a thread after a day, or switch from "thread" to "newest" view, and waste several megs of my limited bandwidth voting and causing a page reload only to not change the totals.
Maybe we can have the voting done as checkboxes with the next/prev/page #'s act as a submit? That would help the seriously bandwidth challenged such as myself :)
(But still much thanks to El Reg, your site has its quirks but overall is better than most I visit :) )
Like a non-W3C-approved subset of HTML that will allow it's creators to recognise it and thus further abuse their monopoly of search to extend further control over the web.
RIP, open web.
doing my mobile bit.... binned Chrome installed Opera Mini, binned Google search, started using DuckDuckGo and lo...instead of bashing the bishop at 1GB+ a month, I'm cruising at about 117MB a month.... and pages actually load without having to make a coffee each time I click on something. Google is EVIL!
>Like a non-W3C-approved subset of HTML
That's a good description of what HTML is these days - W3C couldn't cut it (last recommendation is approaching 3) - so WHATWG picked up the blowtorch to provide what generally passes as HTML5 these days.
>RIP, open web.
....it is actually Openish - largely steered by Opera, Moz and Apple bods.
On a non tech forum (Mumsnet ... it's a long story) there was a post only yesterday where someone was REALLY pissed off that their daughter had been conned by a look-alike site that - guess what - had been promoted by Google.
They were understandably upset and putting forward the suggestion that Google had some responsibility. After all, they had listed the site.
Now, I have no idea about the legalities or otherwise - where under US or UK law. The salient point is that it's sites like Mumsnet which have driven the UKs draconian web censorship laws which are already eyeing Google as being more than a search engine.
Shit like this isn't going to help Googles "not us guv" stance.
But was this a story about a driving licence or visa application type copy cat site? If so it isn't the same discussion. In which case it is quite hard to differentiate a scam site from a legit one sometimes - for instance, the post office have a service to submit your passport application but charge a fee for it. Is that different from another site which charges to do the paperwork and send it off, or a lawyer who charges for drawing up a will etc?
If it is about the fact that it was fake news pretending to be a legitimate site due to them using Google AMP formatting, then fair enough.
No ... and read the responses. These people vote - and will vote to keep their Precious First Born pure ...
My daughter wanted to get her best friend some Kylie Jenner makeup for her birthday. She googled and clicked on the first link which came up and ordered £30 worth of cosmetics (money she'd saved up from pocket money and holiday jobs). She got a confirmation number with an order number and thought all was well. Except that her order never arrived.
She showed me the website she used and it's identical to the official site apart from xl at the end of the address - it even has https at the start.
If she'd paid by credit card she would be protected but as she's too young for a credit card she used her debit card so will never see the money again.
Aibu in thinking that google should do more to protect young consumers from fraudulent sites? (my emphasis)
https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2932576-to-think-that-google-should-take-responsibility-for-scam-sites?
Aibu in thinking that google should do more to protect young consumers from fraudulent sites?
I love the fact that she* uses the expression "Am I being unreasonable" so much that she has an acronym for it.
* Sorry if this seems sexist. I assume it's she because the site is called Mumsnet.
"Aibu - if you have to ask the question, the answer is yes."
That is glib tosh. "Am I being unreasonable?" is a perfectly reasonable way of offering an opinion while displaying some humility, in recognition of the fact that what seems reasonable, even blandly uncontroversial to one person, might outrage another.
Two decent, smart people can hold views which are polar opposites, each initially regarding the other's opinion as "unreasonable". That's why honest debate, evaluation of evidence, looking at another's rationale are so important to civilisation. Those two decent, smart people can talk to each other (not the same as shouting past each other) and may end up still disagreeing—but doing so while at least understanding why their interlocutor reasonably holds differing views.
I think it's called being a grown-up. Admittedly, in the modern Age of Stupid, epitomised by the rise of such cretinous children as the current "leader" of the free world, this appears to be in short supply.
But let the rest of us please not fall into the traps of simplistic, glib dismissals of others' views.
Sorry, bollocks. "Am I being..." is nothing but a cheap attempt to strong-arm approval out of your interlocutor by forcing the polite deflection in 99.999999999% of cases, mostly used when even the speaker feels their cause is shoddy enough to need that. After a certain age those nasty little things people consciously or unconsciously do with the sole intent of trying to manipulate you tend to stick out like a sore thumb.
*Hands back your red Swingline* Please don't burn down the office yet, I still need to rescue my "Fuck this job!" coffee mug.
Sarcasm aside, thank you for the well articulated argument. It's a refreshing change of pace. Enjoy a pint on me... preferrably long enough so I can get that coffee mug. =-)p
You're still protected under the distant selling act and debit card chargeback. If they haven't honoured the contract by failing to deliver then contact your bank who issued the debit card and ask for a chargeback due to fraud.
The "site with xl at the end of the address" - somebody registered that domain. Somebody either put that site on a hosting service, or obtained the IP address for his own server.
So the police should be able to track the party down. If it turns out the site is hosted in an uncooperative jurisdiction... like Russia, for example... then it can simply be disconnected from the Internet, with the OECD nations refusing to use any Internet backbone to which that country is allowed access.
So if the police can't collar the responsible party, and extract every penny of her money from him or her, there should still be consequences, as automatically as night follows day.
There probably won't be - but if we had done things like that, the Internet would be a very different place.
Firefox Mobile is good. addons mean adblocking on mobile! saves data (all those auto-running video ads, urgh) without resorting to static pages in mini-browsers (which are also good, but break some sites)
I do however wish they would improve the zoom though, only supporting two finger pinching right now, which invariably requires two handed use to be effective. They add this, I'll probably make the full switch.
So Pros and Cons
Totally agree. Mobile Firefox is awesome and being able to turn ABP on means I can actually use my mobile for t'internetty stuff with wanting to throw it at a fucking wall.
Only problem I have is the way the page looks like it's loaded so you tap a link then the fucker jumps up a bit and the buffered tap gets applied to the wrong fucking link.
That does my swede in no end but I gather it happens with most mobile browsers.
Not at all a fan of this Google AMP thing. I don't really use Google stuff though (DDG on every device) so hopefully it won't affect me too much. Sucks if it fucks things up in general though.
I've stopped using Google on my phones/tablets now. I use DDG and, when the results are not sufficient, the !g flag to search google. Since using DDG to do Google searches, I don't get AMP results. This data point does not a proof make, but perhaps others have similar results.
AMP is ridiculous and nowhere near the convenience they must think it is. Trying to escape the page to get to the actual article itself to say perhaps get to the comments or their related content is a pain in the ass. I've ended up having to go back to find the link to the article on the actual mobile site of the news provider. They need to kill it with fire now.
I'm more annoyed by the AMP interface while I'm on a page. That huge header that sort of tries to implement similar appearance/disappearance behaviour as my browser bar but gets it all wrong so as just usually to be in the way, and the way that the slightest hint of a leftward or rightward movement in your scrolling causes you to push the content left or right, unlike every other scroll area in the OS where some intelligent leeway is applied.
Actually, "decided to reimplement something the phone does natively, got it wrong" is a recurring theme of Google. Witness the scrolling on the mobile version of Google News, or the back button behaviour in the beta Material version of Youtube.
I'd vote with my feet by disabling AMP if I could. It's something I want about as much as Google+. Maybe I should just take the hint and find a new search engine?
Google made AMP to destroy the much more dangerous threat of Facebook and Apple's proprietary news apps.
The goal of AMP is to produce lightweight pages, which publishers SHOULD be able to create by themselves, simply using self-control to not stuff their own pages full of shit.
However they were physically unable to not shit in their own nests, so Google had to babysit them, and they quite rightly signed up.
AMP doesn't affect the desktop at all, and it will give mobile users more freedom. Because anything more than zero is an improvement.
The goal of AMP is to produce lightweight pages, which publishers SHOULD be able to create by themselves, simply using self-control to not stuff their own pages full of shit.
THIS. This right here is the nut in the shell.
All other arguments are moot and spectacle.
Not making lightweight webpages the way god intended is the REAL fucking problem. Everywhere.
I do NOT understand the downvotes for this. Poser designers? Clueless marketing bog brains? Wankerific script kiddies who just THINK they know how to design and build websites? The special-places-in-hell advert channel server business? Fuck off the lot of you.
All of them shitting in the nest by the tanker ship.
Does this mean I support AMP? Fuck no. The last damn thing the Internet needs it yet ANOTHER fucking protocol.
As a developer, I have to say, developing with AMP is awesome! I just rebuilt my companies entire structure to AMP standards and it was the best choice I ever made. My boss loves it our clients are over the roof, and as far as everyone other than me knows, there are 0 compromises to the functionality of our sites.
Some points
- amp loads sites instantly... literally
- we compromised nothing content wise
- we use Wordpress, Gutenberg, and the AMP plugin so content creation is a breeze for our whole team
- I always hated huge libraries of extra crap like jquery
Etc etc
Why is everyone mad at Google for unfair business? None of us would have business without them. You make a search engine if you hate it so much. Yes big companies can be evil, but I don’t personally believe Google is one of them. I’m more mad when a rich person doesn’t donate to charity. I don’t really get mad at a business for being a business. Look at Amazon if you want to get mad about big company bullshit
Honestly, I’m probably a semi-expert developer, and honestly, it was a hard switch to make. I had to build a custom Wordpress theme from scratch that has some very heavy lifting to do in the back end. So yes, AMP makes it harder for established companies to switch. That being said, coding with AMP for a new site from scratch is very easy and the barrier of entry is much lower than that of custom JavaScript. Are you upset that Google is making it harder for big companies to compete against the little guy?
There are genuine concerns, like the URL issue, but AMP listens to us and is actively working on solutions. I was surprised to see that an AMP dev answered my questions on stack overflow within a day.
Write a reasoned argument about AMP then fine. But this is full of hyperbole and distortion of the facts. The comment that Google AMP strips all branding is rubbish.
Go to Google on your mobile. Type "news about ..." for instance. The AMP pages have the same visibility and branding in the normal results as any other page. In fact the dedicated News AMP section tags each story wit the actual graphic branding of the organisation - which is much more than a normal search has, unless you get an info box.
Click on one of those AMP pages and it loads quick with full branding of the site. You mentioned the guardian - well that brings up a page with the full Guardian branding and their unique style and colours. It looks just like a normal but more succinct Guardian page which works much better on Mobile.
The fact that you have to put an AMP javascript library in is designed to ensure that there a no blocking elements which are a pain especially on mobile. This could probably only be done with javascript but this does have to be universal so is going to not be as efficient as one written directly for a certain page or site.
The key issue I see with AMP pages is around advertising - this is where there are controls about what and how they can be served. However initial talk that you could only use Google ads is wrong and and ad platform could serve ads on AMP pages. However the high bandwidth, javascript heavy, ones aren't going to work - which is a good thing.
The key issue around AMP is that although it is open source, it was not run through a standards body to create the standard. The idea of AMP pages is a good one for consumers, I would suggest. Many people use a mobile on the go, want quick information while sitting at a bus stop or trying to find information about a product while in a shop - very different to sitting at a PC and deciding to surf the net.
I don't develop for to AMP because it isn't suitable for the type of site we have (it doesn't serve up purely content) and our mobile offering is pretty good already. But as a web user I would like to have seen sites put more thought into the mobile experience and it is a shame that Google, using a level of extortion tactics, was needed to get them to do it.
However the arguments against it get lost in a rant against Google not the technology, it almost seems like it was ghost written by another journalist on the Register.
It breaks my search history, as I didn't go to the originating website.
It breaks my offline reading with Pocket, as I can no longer search for articles the same way.
That's the start of the issues, I've posted elsewhere in the comments in more detail.
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