
The Problem with AMP - segf4ult
https://80x24.net/post/the-problem-with-amp/
======
greenspot
Google is abusing its powers. The search rank is our currency and Google has
pushed AMP sites to the top for some while. So, everybody is now building
weird AMP layers for their sites. We went from a free to a proprietary mobile
web in just a few weeks. And we can't do anything. It feels like the times
when the Internet Explorer tried to rule except that more people were
complaining.

The open solution to a faster mobile web would have been so easy: Just
penalize large and slow web pages without defining a dedicated mobile
specification. That's it. This wasn't done in the past, slow pages
outperformed fast ones on the SERPs because of some weird Google voodoo
ranking, heck sometimes even desktop sites outperformed responsive ones on
smartphones. If they had just tweaked these odd ranking rules in way that
speed and size got more impact on the overall ranking there wouldn't have been
any reason for AMP— _the market would have regulated itself._

I'm wondering who at Google is responsible for AMP. Who created AMP's random
specs (no external CSS but external fonts files, preference for four selected
font providers, no JS but their JS, probable ranking preference of Google
cached AMP sites, etc.). Why did they decide on the spec themselves and not as
a part of an industry group? Again why didn't they just tweaked their ranking
algorithm and btw, they could have also made Android's Chrome faster, it's
still significantly slower than iOS' Safari. I'd be happy if this person could
comment on the abuse of power (Sundar Pichai?).

~~~
wheelerwj
> Google is abusing its powers.

They are a business, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

It's up to us to find a way to kill google and take back our internet.

Edit, i love the downvotes for this. Google is legally required to act in
their shareholders best interests. You all should understand fiduciary duty.
They are building long term value for a massive (and growing) customer segment
at the expense of a relatively small base of idealist tech users. Its morally
reprehensible but still the correct decision in today's business climate.

~~~
joelthelion
> They are a business, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

Violating anti-trust laws?

~~~
wheelerwj
I'm no google fanboy, but they haven't been convicted of violating any
antitrust laws here in the US.

Edit: Again with downvotes. Have I made an inaccurate statement?

~~~
Fnoord
FYI: Although I suppose everyone every once in a while is surprised about the
way their posts are moderated on HN and other websites (if they notice, that
is) it is annoying when people complain about downvoting. I just automatically
downvote that.

Sometimes what you state just isn't popular for the crowd who reads it and/or
moderates it. Doesn't mean you are right or wrong. Just take a deep breath and
give it a rest.

EDIT: The guidelines say: "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It
never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
hence, nope, I won't change that unless someone who works for HN directs me
to.

~~~
wheelerwj
> I just automatically downvote that.

We can both agree that one of us needs to change.

The guidelines are fine, the part you should change is automatically
downvoting anything. Just jumping on a bandwagon makes for pretty boring
reading too.

~~~
NTripleOne
hint: it's you

------
freyir
AMP is one of the most frustrating experiences I've had with Google. the fact
that it's foisted on users, with no option to disable it, makes it borderline
infuriating.

If you're stuck on an AMP page in your mobile browser, you can click on the
browser's "Request desktop site" option to load the full page.

~~~
tehlike
I am really curious if an ordinary user gets frustrated with AMP as much as an
HN reader does.

PS: Not intending to be sarcastic. PS2: I work for google, but not on
something amp related.

~~~
jshen
I've seen ordinary users get frustrated with it, but they don't understand
why. They don't know what AMP is, and they don't realize they are on an AMP
page. For example, the URL bar says they are on Google but they are reading a
Slate article. The web is already confusing enough, and AMP makes it worse.
Many ordinary users think they are reading content from Google, like that
famous CNN interview where a lady said, "I read it in Facebook"

Which leads to the question, why is google doing this? They, you, could easily
promote AMP pages while not masking the real URL! The answer is simple,
profits over what's best for users.

Edit: I just did a search to find the CNN interview I mentioned, copied the
URL to share here, and look it's a google URL. WHY?
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/trump-v...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/trump-
voter-fraud-facebook-cnn-2016-12?client=safari)

~~~
tehlike
i am curious about the numbers, though i do not know internally or externally
if there are numbers showing this. As a power android user, i kind of like the
rss-reader-esque look and feel of the amp links. It also opens blazing fast.
With these in mind, minor inconveniences (like the address bar) are probably
something i wouldn't mind.

~~~
sah2ed
> It also opens blazing fast. With these in mind, minor inconveniences (like
> the address bar) are probably something i wouldn't mind.

Of course you wouldn't mind, since, as you've said elsewhere that you work at
Google.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it!" — Upton Sinclair

~~~
tehlike
Eh - that is because you don't know me. I have been a very vocal critic of
many google products and product shutdowns.

edit: typo

------
akras14
I wrote a similar(although not as concise) article about 3 month ago:
[https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-
mobile-...](https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-
traffic/)

After which I was invited to meet Google AMP team and to express my concerns,
you can read my Q&A here: [https://www.alexkras.com/i-had-lunch-with-google-
amp-team/](https://www.alexkras.com/i-had-lunch-with-google-amp-team/)

TLDR; A lot of concerns are getting addressed

1\. Minor, but the bar at the top is now scrollable on all devices, including
(finally) iOS: [https://www.alexkras.com/amp-toolbar-is-now-scrollable-on-
sa...](https://www.alexkras.com/amp-toolbar-is-now-scrollable-on-safari-
mobile/), it was not when I first wrote the article, so it's a good sign.

2\. It is my understanding that the team is actively working on a way to "fix"
the link issue, and give an easy way to get to original article, although it
remains to be seen how they will approach it.

3\. You can opt out from AMP cache on the web site end, but it really defeats
the purpose. Read more here: [https://www.alexkras.com/i-had-lunch-with-
google-amp-team/](https://www.alexkras.com/i-had-lunch-with-google-amp-team/)

4\. Most importantly, looks like there is even internal pressure to give
people an option to Turn Off AMP on the search engine side, if they don't like
it. See this, for example:
[https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/820344221450125312](https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/820344221450125312)
@cramforce is THE tech lead on AMP and @slightlylate is also a big shot at
Google on Chrome Team.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about AMP, on one side I really like the
speed, on the other I hate how it breaks the Web as we know it.

~~~
saurik
The navigation toolbar hiding is only part of the problem with the navigation
on iOS: AMP also breaks the default iOS navigation bar hiding, so even with
the AMP toolbar hiding screen real estate is still being burned. Your article
also hadn't even mentioned scrolling: on iOS, at least, scrolling is "janky"
and slow and unnatural; and that's before you realize the insanity of how they
selfishly are breaking scroll left and right in their attempt to take control
of the entire Internet as mere content for their website :/.

~~~
akras14
Great points!

------
65827
It's so strange to see Google repeating all the same mistakes AOL did so many
years ago. No I don't want your fucking garden, I want the network. If you get
in the way of that I'm done with you.

~~~
space_fountain
Everything seems to be moving towards gardens right now. Certainly not just
Google. It's one of the things that depresses me most about tech right now.

~~~
flukus
The most depressing part of it is that the HN community don't seem to care and
will actively cheer it in many cases (walled garden IRC and cloud in general).
The only reason we have an open internet at all is because techies cared back
in the day.

~~~
jdironman
I feel like this is only partially true.

The majority of the articles, excluding those from large name corps, are
simple loading pages. Using primarily the basic HTML and inline CSS. You do
have the occasional blog page with some fancy touches, but the majority of the
links that I click on while browsing HN has me questioning why, on sub par
satellite internet, that HN and a majority of it's submitted posts work when
Facebook, Google, Bing, etc.. does not.

I feel it can.

Everything just feels so bloated.

------
matthewmacleod
I don't like AMP, and I very glad there is now some push back against Google's
implementation of it. Fast pages are great, but I suppose I'm missing the
background on why it was necessary to do this, when anybody who can implement
AMP could presumably have implemented "lightweight non bloated pages" without
using it.

It's bad enough that I've had to switch to using Bing on mobile, despite the
worse results, and I'm actually genuinely fearful for the first time about the
openness of the web.

~~~
davedx
Yeah, I'm tired of not being able to load Reddit from Google SERPs on my
phone. Really tired of it.

Time to give DuckDuckGo another try I guess...

~~~
djmobley
Have you checked your content blockers?

~~~
ricardobeat
Disabling ad blocking makes it work, yes. That is part of the problem here...

------
ejcx
One thing I love about AMP, that seems to never be mentioned when people
discuss it, is viewing AMP-HTML pages on my laptop.

I wrote a small chrome extension that always forwards my page to the
equivalent AMP page (if one exists) and the experience of reading the news is
so much better.

AMP pages off mobile are really really amazing. Compare Non-AMP[0] vs AMP[1]

[0] [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Trump-on-the-minds-
of-...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Trump-on-the-minds-of-MLK-Day-
marchers-in-SF-10861091.php)

[1] [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/Trump-on-the-minds-of-
MLK-...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/Trump-on-the-minds-of-MLK-Day-
marchers-in-SF-10861091.php)

~~~
candiodari
Yeah but here it's functioning effectively as a better ad-blocker (one that
doesn't screw up site layout). Looking at how AMP works, I can see why : you'd
have to decide before you know who the user is what ads to show.

Wouldn't that effectively mean that in a search query followed by an AMP site
visit only Google has the opportunity to show targeted ads ?

~~~
derefr
I imagine it's supposed to be similar to how Apple's iAd platform works for
iOS apps. It's a bad shake for third-party ad networks, but it's great for
user privacy, since third-party origin requests are no longer being made to
anyone but the platform owner (who then anonymizes the impression metrics they
give back to the ad creators, who just have to trust the platform-owner's
stats.)

------
cavemanmike
Using [https://encrypted.google.com/](https://encrypted.google.com/) to avoid
AMP is a great tip. I'll be doing that, does anybody have more information on
what that URL is for?

Is it possible to set it as default on iOS/Android somehow? AMP really
frustratingly breaks link sharing, and I'd like to totally avoid it.

~~~
ivank
> does anybody have more information on what that URL is for?

Many years ago, Google Search existed only on [http://](http://) and schools
used filters to block searches that they didn't like. Then Google shipped
[https://](https://) for search on www.google.com, upset the schools because
they could no longer block just some searches, then moved encrypted search to
encrypted.google.com so that the entire domain could be blocked:
[https://cloud.googleblog.com/2010/06/an-update-on-
encrypted-...](https://cloud.googleblog.com/2010/06/an-update-on-encrypted-
web-search-in.html)

~~~
astronautjones
this seems so dumb... is the difference between schools blocking and
governments blocking negligible to them?

------
robryan
AMP is okay for news, but terrible for other forms of content. The reddit
implementation is way less usable on mobile than going to their actual site.

It also results in lower quality news appearing at the top of searches in
cases where they have implemented AMP and the better sources haven't.

~~~
kristianp
Can you give an example of how to view reddit via AMP? If I just search for
"reddit" on my Android phone for example, there are no AMP links to reddit,
only Business Insider etc.

~~~
magicalist
On my phone (chrome on android), basically any google search result from
reddit goes to the amp version of the page.

(with all five visible comments, and since the full comments are almost
certainly what I was searching for, I end up having to click through to the
full page anyway every time)

~~~
fortytw2
For me, on iOS, I've _never_ had a Reddit AMP page actually finish loading /
rendering. Broken since the start

~~~
ryao
There is an incompatibility between the Reddit app and Reddit amp links. If
the Reddit app is not installed, they load just fine. Reddit likely could fix
that if they were told about it. I have no idea how to tell them though.

------
booleandilemma
I really prefer Google and still use it when I'm on my desktop, but I find
myself using Bing more and more when I'm on my phone just to avoid AMP. If
Google made an easy way to jump from the AMP page to the original page then I
wouldn't mind it so much.

The # 1 reason why AMP bothers me is when I want to share a link with someone,
I don't want to send an AMP link.

~~~
incongruity
This, exactly. AMP pages get in the way of sharing content – or at least in
the way of being transparent about what you're sharing and where it's coming
from.

------
colept
I'm glad AMP's weaknesses are finally gaining attention and making their
rounds. Google should not be allowed to steal publishers' traffic and strong-
arm them into going along with it.

~~~
thesagan
Controversial question: At what point would Google start to be considered an
antitrust issue? I know the EU has made some noise about it, but I'm a bit
surprised I haven't heard more about it here in the U.S.

~~~
colept
In my opinion, they've already violated the trust of publishers. Take Google
Lyrics for example:

[http://phandroid.com/2014/12/31/google-lyrics-
search/](http://phandroid.com/2014/12/31/google-lyrics-search/)

In all fairness, lyric sites were terrible. Slow, riddled with ads, and
sometimes incorrect. While Google's lyrics are a great service to the user,
they're at the top of search and displayed inline. There's no reason to go to
lyric sites anymore.

My biggest fear is Structured Data and AMP. With Structure Data, you volunteer
your most valuable data in a format Google can easily consume and adapt to its
own needs - all so you can get better page rankings. When Google introduces
its own service in the same market - just like lyrics - you're effectively cut
off from your audience. And with AMP, you don't have to wait for Google to
siphon your traffic - you're volunteering.

~~~
astronautjones
They're also republishing peoples' artistic creations with no permission -
same goes for "Band - Topic" on youtube. Many people that publish their music
through epublishers have no idea that youtube will monetize the (audio-only)
video uploads of their songs, and get hit with takedown notices if they try to
upload it on their own. It happened to me, and we had to really hammer the
intermediary epublisher to get youtube to reupload our own video (!).

Edit: on top of that, the video that got taken down was an iphone video of
people dancing to a song playing over a stereo - kudos to how accurate their
detection is, but goddamn!

------
jordanlev
And what happened to whole "don't build different markup for different
devices" mantra that has been the accepted wisdom in web development for the
past 4 or 5 years (whenever responsive design was discovered)? Feels like "m."
sites all over again (but this time with google's CDN as a required
intermediary).

~~~
technion
As someone happy with their AMP site, I'm _only_ happy with it on the basis
that my Jekyll theme builds the whole site as a single site that happens to
support AMP on the desktop page.

I couldn't imagine dealing with supporting two deployments.

------
alistproducer2
I make my own amp pages by keeping JavaScript turned off on my phone. 95℅ of
pages work and load instantly. Those that don't, I turn on JavaScript. If I go
to those pages a lot I add them to my exception list. Sorry but I'm not an amp
believer.

~~~
amorphid
It just took me 8 clicks and a couple swipes to disable JS in my mobile
browser, Chrome on Android. Another 8 clicks and couple swipes to enable JS.
Is there a faster way to do that?

~~~
CaptSpify
I know this isn't really and answer to what you are asking, but...

On FF mobile, with the "Toggle Javascript enabled" add-on it takes me 3 clicks
to reload a page with JS disabled.

~~~
Sylos
NoScript is also available for Android Firefox:
[https://noscript.net/nsa/](https://noscript.net/nsa/)

------
djsumdog
I've had many of these concerns about AMP myself and have seen other posts on
this before. I tend to agree with their points. If you want to optimize your
mobile view, than you can do that without a Google pseudo-standard. When
someone clicks on a link to your site, they should go to your site.

This wouldn't be that big a deal if Google didn't emphasize the rank of AMP
pages. There aren't a lot of alternatives out there to search, and Google
dominates the market in much of the world.

------
abusque
Possibly off-topic, but the article isn't displaying[0] for me on Chromium
55.0.2883.87 (64-bit), running on Arch Linux, unless I go in the dev tools and
manually remove "Fira Sans" from the font-family list in .container[1]. Not
sure whether the problem is with me or the site, I'm surprised it doesn't
fall-back to sans-serif before I override manually.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/qJKSvMC.png](http://i.imgur.com/qJKSvMC.png) [1]
[http://i.imgur.com/zYDZrtr.png](http://i.imgur.com/zYDZrtr.png)

~~~
segf4ult
That's weird. I'll look into a fix.

Edit: I couldn't reproduce this with Chromium on Ubuntu 16.10. I might set up
an Arch Linux box to see if that makes a difference.

~~~
krzyk
It happens on my Firefox 52 on Debian. I also have ublock origin installed.

Maybe you use some strange fonts?

------
conductr
On AMP page, clicking the X on the header box should load the HTML page.
Instead it kicks you back to the search results. I think I would be okay if
they fixed that one thing.

~~~
jedmeyers
That's my main pet peeve with AMP as well. In my mind the [x] in the top bar
is almost exclusively associated with 'remove the bar' behavior in Safari on
iOS.

~~~
akras14
They viewed Google as platform and clicking x, takes user back to the
platform. This was one of my biggest complains about the AMP project form the
start. According to AMP team lead, however, the user testing on regular (not
tech) users showed, that x did what people expected.

I really think AMP can benefit a lot from PR stand point by letting techies
opt out from it, but leaving it on for "regular" users. See
[https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/820344221450125312](https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/820344221450125312)

~~~
niftich
Interesting info, but whether or not it's true, it certainly benefits their
strategy. I have no doubt that they want to push the narrative that Google
(Search) is the 'platform' and the news from publishers they wrap is a tab or
viewport that you can [x] (exit) out of, returning to the default 'blank'
Google page.

The problem with that is that the UX is inconsistent between AMP results and
web results. AMP results pretend they're this fake tab that can be "closed"
and you return to Google, while web results take you away to the URL like
you'd expect, which means navigation is the responsibility of the browser, and
not of Google Search.

Frankly, this all would make more sense in the viewport-wrapping context of
Google Chrome or Google News or the Google App rather than a behavior of
Google Search, but that's not the limit of their ambition.

Or just, y'know, dress up the results page a bit more, and be honest about it.
Brand the AMP subsection 'Read Instantly with AMP' and have it clearly and
visibly wrap the results. This gains them a bunch of mindshare.

Or change the [x] to a 'back arrow', like their own splash page shows [1].

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/vAtqq](http://imgur.com/a/vAtqq)

~~~
saurik
Wow: that screenshot makes so much more sense; I wonder why they dropped it...
maybe because "back" was confusing with their "swipe left/right to get other
articles" hijack?

~~~
akras14
Ah, good point.

------
vajrapani666
There's little power for us when Google abuses the trust the community has
afforded to them.

Let's assume this got much worse, and evidence came out that private political
interests worked with Google to interfere with informed consent by
reprioritizing what some called "fake news", when really what was being called
fake news was actually anti-government activists pointing out collusion
between tech companies and the government. Clearly, Google would be an agent
to destroying democracy.

I imagine detecting that a visitor came from Google, and showing them an
interstitial informing the user they have come from a state-sponsored search
engine, and letting them know what that means and the alternatives to Google.

I think it's actually pretty trivial to build something like this with recipes
for the popular CDNs and servers out there. Even a JS snippet would be totally
fine.

Google is pursuing AMP not because it wants to promote a better experience on
the web, but because Google wants to be the provider whose technology and own
practices perform best on SRPs. They are acting like capitalist pigs, and we
should coordinate a protest against Google to let them know they can't just
walk all over us with no consequences.

January 20th seems like an ideal day.

------
adzm
My biggest problem is simply being unable to open up an amp link in a new tab.
Often in Google News for example I prefer to open up several tabs and read
through them at my leisure. But with AMP this became impossible - though I'm
unclear if this is simply a limitation of the implementation.

~~~
stuckagain
Long press and open in new tab seems to work for me in chrome/iOS.

------
mcintyre1994
I don't generally disagree with this article but I'd be interested to see
research behind "it is a lot easier to stop using the Facebook app or Apple
News app than it is to avoid Google search." \- for Facebook specifically.

I know a few people who view Facebook's app on their phone as the Internet and
who would never think to Google search a question. I'd be interested to know
how widespread that actually is among Facebook's vast user base, in comparison
to how many use Google and avoid Facebook.

~~~
beezischillin
Make no mistake, Facebook is also about the lock-in. Splitting the main app
from Messenger makes a lot of sense in retrospect and is 100% about locking in
users and their communication to be within the Facebook platform. Being in a
situation where most of your communication goes through one platform, it's
absolutely harder to abandon Facebook without abandoning a very important
communication tool. Changing a search engine is somewhat easier in my opinion.

------
Philipp__
AMP made me switch to DuckDuckGO on my iPhone as default search engine. Day 5,
and so far I am surprised how well it works! I might switch on my computers
too... Google just went too far with AMP in my opinion, pure abuse of power.
Reminds me of something that would Facebook do, where they push changes down
the consumers throat, but they aren't aware of their dependency on users (but
most people don't care, bitch and whine about something that they do not like
and don't sanction the product/company).

------
WA
The joke of AMP is this: I lost a few rankings for an important keyword to a
competitor. My page loads in milliseconds without AMP, whereas the competitor
shovels 300 HTTP requests down the visitor's throat with several MB worth of
ad trackers and junk.

The technical side of SEO – and thus the justification of AMP – is a joke if a
trash website like my competitor's can be on #1.

------
otakucode
I am unfamiliar with AMP, so I apologize if this question is based on a
misunderstanding. The article says that all links in AMP pages begin with
"[https://www.google.com/amp/"](https://www.google.com/amp/") right? Isn't
this an invitation to bad actors of every flavor to produce AMP pages which
will, to the users who know to look at their address bar and note the source
domain, appear to be legitimate?

~~~
akras14
100% and it's already being exploited

------
apeace
Google deserves more credit than it's being given here.

I think AMP is Google's next SPDY. As you know, SPDY eventually became HTTP/2
through an open standardization process, and Google has since deprecated SPDY
in favor of the open HTTP/2 standard.

AMP is similarly open. While it is still Google-driven at this stage, other
companies are already iterating on it and implementing their own AMP
caches[0]. There's no reason to believe Google is attempting to "lock-in"
users to Google (and this article provides no evidence of that).

Every major tech company is trying to keep up with the demands of users. They
demand content that loads really fast. People in many parts of the world have
poor access to mobile data, which increases the importance of this even
further.

As mentioned in this article, both Apple and Facebook are also working on
similar projects. At least you can send a pull request to Google's.

Is Google using its influence to push the web in a different direction? Yes.
Is it a bad thing? I don't think so, but others may disagree. The issue is
that this article provides no argument that AMP is a bad thing, but rather a
conspiracy theory that it is Google's attempt at "lock-in".

I agree that requiring an external Javascript to be loaded is a privacy issue,
and that should be fixed. How about contributing a solution?

If not AMP or something along the same lines, how do we the tech community
solve the problem of delivering static articles lightning-fast?

[0] [https://www.cloudflare.com/website-
optimization/accelerated-...](https://www.cloudflare.com/website-
optimization/accelerated-mobile-links/)

------
deminature
I agree with some missing content and linking issues with reddit, however the
improvement in loading time is probably 10x. I'd be interested in seeing this
quantified - I didn't appreciate just how slowly reddit loaded until loading
the amp version, followed by the real version. Loading the amp version on a
less-than-stellar mobile connection is much preferable to the real version.

------
tschellenbach
It's actually a pretty nifty feature when you're browsing the web from a
plane's slow wifi.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
But the people who designed the page in the first place should be able to make
it just as fast without using AMP.

~~~
magicalist
> _But the people who designed the page in the first place should be able to
> make it just as fast without using AMP._

...but they don't, which is the point.

I'll throw my hat in on being a fan of reading news on AMP pages as well
(though reddit amp does seem completely broken). I wouldn't care in the least
if news site x instead wrote a fast site, I'd happily use that instead. But
until they do, yeah, as a user I'll click on the amp link first.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
And I'm the opposite. I do my best to NOT use AMP pages. If a site can't be
bothered to optimize it's own pages, then they don't get my
attention/money/whatever. I can do without. Let the best developed sites win.

------
minijackson
CPP (Content Performance Policy) is an open, standardized alternative to AMP,
that may need help to finish it:

Draft:
[http://wicg.github.io/ContentPerformancePolicy/](http://wicg.github.io/ContentPerformancePolicy/)
Github:
[https://github.com/wicg/ContentPerformancePolicy/](https://github.com/wicg/ContentPerformancePolicy/)
Launch article: [https://timkadlec.com/2016/02/a-standardized-alternative-
to-...](https://timkadlec.com/2016/02/a-standardized-alternative-to-amp/) HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787462)

~~~
wheelerwj
This wont matter because google isn't prioritizing CPP sites. Google has the
majority of the traffic and it gets to dictate that amp gets preferential
treatment.

------
christop
> Techniques such as subresource integrity should be used where appropriate.

While this is a good recommendation, I'm not sure this is possible with AMP,
as they don't provide versioned URLs; the JS loaded keeps changing over time.

Edit: Indeed, this was rejected:
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/534](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/534)

------
monochromatic
Screw AMP. I've started using DuckDuckGo.

~~~
lightbulbjim
Yep, AMP is what finally made me switch away from Google on my phone.

------
oflannabhra
My biggest issue with AMP regards its UX. In mobile Safari, scrolling is
hijacked. This creates two issues: non-native scroll momentum, and the
inability to scroll to the top (by tapping the status bar).

I have several other issues as well, but they are mentioned in the article.

------
roneythomas6
Yeah you can use Cloudflare to serve amp from your own subdomain instead of
Google's CDN. [https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-
mobile/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/)

~~~
ec109685
Not within google search results though.

~~~
drhousejr
I don't think that's actually true...

"Cloudflare now powers the only compliant non-Google AMP cache with all the
same performance and security benefits as Google."

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-
mobile/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/)

The term "compliant" would make it seems as though Google has them as a
trusted source now and as such will show that content in AMP features in
Google

------
tbv
Cloudflare just launched an accelerated mobile links project which addresses
most of your criticisms.

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-
mobile/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/)

------
BrandonM
On my iPhone, I use DuckDuckGo mainly to avoid AMP. I use Google on my laptop.

~~~
lightbulbjim
Ditto.

~~~
BrandonM
Apparently, 6 people (including you) agree with me.

------
bluejekyll
I wish the post offered an alternative.

Given that there are at least three similar specs, shouldn't there be a Light
HTML5, or something that provides the same set of underlying guarantees?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
You mean something like:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement)

------
gareim
AMP hijacks scrolling and changes it. They've gotten better, but it's still
annoying when I notice.

------
daveheq
I've had almost nothing but problems reading news webpages on my phone since
AMP; variously, I can't see the URL, I lose the typical Chrome app functions,
I can't zoom in or out, I can't see side or video content referenced in the
article, and I lose options I normally would with long-pressing.

I can't disable any of this from the browser and I can't choose to view the
non-AMP version. It's painfully frustrating, and I'm being forced to read my
news AMP's way instead of my way.

------
Animats
Google commands! Suffer us to obey!

That's AMP.

------
tyfon
I am always confused by this topic.

Having browsed the web via mobile for several years with chrome, I have yet to
encounter an AMP page. Do I have to enable something or is this region
specific? I live in Norway if that matters.

Six months ago I switched my mobile browser from chrome to firefox but I still
se nothing (nor the bar with the X everyone are talking about).

~~~
vurpo
Sometimes you see Google search results (mostly news) that have a little grey
lightning icon underneath the title. When you click the link, the page loads
and looks normal, but is actually loaded from the Google AMP cache and the
address begins with `google.com/amp`.

------
pmlnr
The real "amp experience" is the reader mode in Firefox.

------
dzhiurgis
So the argument against AMP is someone's broken implementation and "security"
of Google's CDN. Sounds like terrible arguments.

That said, Google should give option to opt-out from CDN caching (if they
don't already) as otherwise implementing AMP gives Google the right to host
your content on their domain.

~~~
madeofpalk
I believe the Google AMP CDN 'caching' is opt-in anyway

~~~
HappyTypist
It's not. Google will cache all AMP pages.

~~~
magicalist
Just don't include the Google CDN hosted amp.js file and you won't be cached
on the Google CDN.

------
manigandham
There is no reason for a quasi-proprietary fork of HTML. We already have
enough standards as it is.

HTML is perfectly fast. Sites are only show because of the media/ads/stuff
that's put on them, most of which is a business requirement.

Factoring site speed/weight into search and traffic rankings could've easily
pressured sites into making much better progress that would benefit anyone
using a browser, instead of this random fork that also takes away even more of
the limited time and resources that a publisher has to work on their main
site.

I like Chrome and Google's efforts in making the web faster but this is one of
the worst projects they've ever started.

------
rezashirazian
I recently build a dictionary based on WordNet and decided to AMP all the
pages. I didn't have any issues and honestly it was fairly straightforward.
([http://www.wordcadet.com](http://www.wordcadet.com))

Again I'm not doing anything fancy, I don't handle any user data (JS breach at
google is least of my concern) or have any concern regarding where Google
might take AMP.

I personally like the idea behind AMP. With all these over the top JS
libraries and bloating web applications, a restrict markup that enforces speed
over spectacle is a positive change.

------
throw2016
Something like AMP should be an opt-in for users that requires marketing,
education and the standard process of trying to make your idea work in the
market. Currently its being forced down users and websites throats and is a
blatant abuse of market power.

There should be a opt-in for every search that specifies amp explicity to
signify you want it. Google should be taken to the cleaners for trying to
expand its market power so egregriously. Since its is not going to happen in
the US at least the EU can step in. There has to be something illegal about
these kinds of monopolistic actions.

------
jey
There's definitely something wrong with Reddit's AMP implementation.

------
JumpCrisscross
Every time I post a _Wall Street Journal_ article, the first comment complains
about the paywall. AMP is a reliable WSJ-paywall workaround. Could someone
help me reconcile?

~~~
maverick_iceman
Not anymore.

------
vgprice
As a small but growing site, I've been meaning to get on the AMP train and
essentially steal some SEO before my competitor sites get in on it. Having a
50k page and dynamic site that lives in the database proves to be a challenge
to create AMP optimized pages.

On the topic of AMP being a problem for web standards, I agree. I also can't
afford to miss opportunities to get ahead either.

------
EdSharkey
As described I don't believe I've ever seen an AMP'ified page as they're
described?!

Is it because I don't use Google as my goto search engine? (I use ddg almost
exclusively.)

Or, is it because I don't use Android Chrome as my browser? (I'm on Firefox
Mobile unless some site owners forgot to test on Firefox and I'm forced onto
Chrome.)

~~~
Sylos
As far as I understand it, both of the above. AMP apparently doesn't work on
Firefox and AMP-pages are only linked to by Google.

Obviously, some people might copy the AMP-link themselves and post it
somewhere, but if you're not much on social media, it's entirely possible that
you just haven't seen that yet.

------
bassman9000
IMHO, worst AMP feature it's that it's viral: when sharing the link, you're
sharing the AMP link, so you force your followers to read the AMP version,
and, if they share, they'll share the AMP version...

------
p94ka
>Google insists that AMP is not a factor in a site’s search ranking.

Site speed is a factor in search ranking. Imagine how fast Google benchmarks
the speed of a page that is _hosted on their own servers_...

------
halr9000
Wah? I mean, it's a giant step up from a non mobile optimized website, hands
down. The article downplays Facebook and Apple despite them doing the same
exact thing.

------
iliketurtlez
I am completely against AMP and personally have zero plans to learn and
implement it. That may come back and bite me in the ass, but that's my current
stance.

------
jasonlingx
Is it possible to fork the project and keep all the good things that makes it
fast but remove all the evil lock in stuff?

~~~
roneythomas6
Yes you can and cloudflare is doing that
[https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-
mobile/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/) Check the cache
guideline
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp-c...](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp-
cache-guidelines.md)

~~~
mxuribe
Kudos to cloudflare team for doing this!

------
ksk
A simple way to increase performance would be to stop with the bandwidth
hogging ads and the CPU sucking JS scripts.

------
BillBatw2
This! Thanks for writing about it. I couldn't pin what bothered me with AMP,
but I share your points.

------
brentis
AMP and PWA are going to be big. What better to foster adoption than tell sees
they will get an SEO boost.

------
mrfusion
Do the amp links from google results to Reddit seem broken to anyone else?

Edit: sorry that was actually in the article.

~~~
freyir
Yes. I disabled my mobile ad blocker, and then the Redit AMP pages started
working for me.

------
homero
I despise not being able to see the real url, I actively avoid amp

------
facepalm
I don't understand why AMP needs all the extra shenanigans. Why can't it just
be an optional CDN by Google, transparent to the users?

------
whyileft
The more I read about complaints about AMP, the more it dawns on me that there
are still a fair amount of people that do not understand that the web is
basically Google's product.

Facebook and others have arrived to take significant time away from that
product. Then combine that with things like Facebook Video and Instant
Articles. Google is in a difficult position where Facebook may be able to
start offering up a superior product for content as opposed to the web.

If you want to blame a big corp for AMP, you should probably take a closer
look at Facebook as without it Google risks losing a large chunk of its
market.

~~~
astronautjones
Why not (complain about and be against) both?

------
cowardlydragon
I think I was trapped on one of these AMP pages when I wanted an article and
the link to it so I could send it to a friend, but the article was "trapped"
with a google url and I couldn't get it.

It was like those old-school days where sites tried to put their frame around
the window you were browsing so their ads constantly showed.

Or like the toolbar crapware.

This sucks.

------
alphagrowth
Our early data is showing that advantages like Search engine ranking and
reduction in bounce rate are making AMP a necessity in 2017. All the content
gateways have their own proprietary format to keep users locked into the
platform it's a smart move.

You can read more advantages at [http://alphapages.io](http://alphapages.io)

~~~
hoschicz
The mobile page allows scrolling to sides and the headers/features are hardly
readable

------
symbolepro
Sorry, this is a lame blog post. I did not feel any pain in using AMP powered
pages.

~~~
freyir
You must have not wanted access to the site's full set of features, not wanted
to use a mobile ad blocker, now wanted access to comments, etc. That's fine,
but for many, it's an annoyance.

~~~
aclsid
Comments are half the news anyways :)

~~~
sova
So true

------
paco3346
Ugh, why does nobody ever point out that AMP and Google displaying AMP are 2
different things? Yes, Google is a huge sponsor in the AMP world but they
aren't the only ones involved.

AMP itself isn't so bad- asynchronous Javascript (not no script as the article
suggests) and it is still valid HTML- it just has extra properties on tags
(just how Angular does).

~~~
theWatcher37
AMP is cancer. I go to a search engine to find content, not your URL-obscuring
crappy implementation that I can't even readily share without opening up the
URL and dissecting what I originally wanted from it. It's 2017, my phone has a
decent quad core and 1080p screen... I don't need your gimped "mobile" version
and I don't want you locking me into your platform every time I try and make a
search.

It's absolutely baffling how anyone at google thought this was a good idea. I
mean really, how do you mess something so simple up this bad?

The user experience is terrible, the implementation is terrible, the
_fundamental technical idea_ is terrible... it's gotta go back.

~~~
majkinetor
Amen !

