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Google Search Removes 'Mobile-Friendly' Label, Will Tackle Interstitials Next (venturebeat.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the mobile-friendly dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today announced two updates to mobile search results: an aesthetic one rolling out now and an algorithmic one coming next year. The former consists of removing the "mobile-friendly" label in search results and the latter will punish mobile sites that use interstitials. The goal is to "make finding content easier for users," though as always, the company didn't share exactly how much of an impact users and webmasters can expect. The report adds: "If your site is in the 15 percent group, here's a quick recap. A webpage is considered 'mobile friendly' if it meets the following criteria, as detected in real time by Googlebot: Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash; Uses text that is readable without zooming; Sizes content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom; Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped. The company now wants to tackle 'intrusive interstitials' as they 'provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible.' After January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible when coming from mobile search results 'may not rank as highly.' Interstitials that Google doesn't like include showing a popup that covers the main content (immediately or delayed), displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content, and using a layout where the above-the-fold portion is similar to a standalone interstitial but the original content is inlined underneath. Interstitials that Google deems OK include legal obligations (cookie usage or for age verification), login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable, and banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible."

79 comments

  1. Mobile Web by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My phone has a large enough screen and a high enough resolution that I just prefer to browse the full site. Can we stop the "mobile web" shit?

    1. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As long as you buy everyone a phone that's large enough for them.

    2. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please, no.

      -- Posted from my Blackberry© Curve on the Verizon Network

    3. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know right. It's damn near impossible to ask the average web designer to create a website for both mobile and desktop. There are literally thousands of different user-agents out there and each has it's own specific screen dimensions. Find a better way, standardize some sizes. They won't do that because smartphone companies need to look different in order to separate themselves from the competition. If you think I'm gonna design for every single user-agent and dimension on the planet screw you. Your users can now enjoy zooming in on my website because I refuse to design mobile accessibility for every platform out there. It's too much bs to deal with. It's literally not worth the trouble in my opinion. Mobile has always been a headache.

    4. Re:Mobile Web by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Agreed.

      But then our phones would probably explode under the pressure of fullscreen autostarating flash ads.

      That and embedded java applets, fully interactive canvas elements, and millions of cross site activity trace pings.

      Throw in some android specific attacks, and some other kinds of fun we don't know about yet, and it could be loads more entertaining to browse on a mobile device.

      (I can hardly wait for the aggressive AR adverts of the near future.)

    5. Re: Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I despise the "mobile web" for the same reason you do. Also importantly, I LIKE being able to scroll horizontally and zoom. Almost every mobile site disables these core features. Almost none have an opt-out. Those that do require a manual reload or an account.

      Personally, I'd like a browser in the app store that just always lies and is indistinguishable from a desktop browser. It's pretty much the only way this will ever work anyway- web developers are so relentlessly hostile that they ignore settings and preferences. Any progress will 100% occur client side.

      This is even without the obvious and true fact that mobile sites are a shit sandwich in terms of functionality, which they are, as a rule.

    6. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As a webmaster, it's not that big of a deal to make a website using proper modern HTML mobile compatible. It's a matter of replacing the HTML tables(that we had to use last decade to keep our sites Internet Explorer 6 compatible) with CSS tables, and having a special mobile-friendly CSS file for people on mobile browsers. It took me about a day the last time I had to convert a desktop site so that it was mobile friendly; my new designs just have a second mobile CSS file.

    7. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know right. It's damn near impossible to ask the average web designer to create a website for both mobile and desktop. There are literally thousands of different user-agents out there and each has it's own specific screen dimensions. Find a better way, standardize some sizes. They won't do that because smartphone companies need to look different in order to separate themselves from the competition. If you think I'm gonna design for every single user-agent and dimension on the planet screw you. Your users can now enjoy zooming in on my website because I refuse to design mobile accessibility for every platform out there. It's too much bs to deal with. It's literally not worth the trouble in my opinion. Mobile has always been a headache.

      I think you'll find the problem is that you're shit at your job.

    8. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. For one of my sites, I have three CSS files; all the others only have two CSS files: One for really narrow screens, and another one for the full sized site.

      HTML has always been designed to adapt to different screen sizes; sure, the text flow will be a little different for a slightly narrower or wider screen, but the site remains readable and usable. Indeed, a good 1990s web design which uses HTML only for markup is perfectly usable on a modern small-screen smartphone.

    9. Re:Mobile Web by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The irony is that the way Tim Berners-Lee designed the web, the web server was to send you a minimally-structured set of information to display, and it would be up to the client to format it in the best way for the local display. This meant things like font sizes, page flow, in-line photos, etc. should adhere to settings on the browser.

      The designers and page layout artists were horrified at this, and did everything in their power to subvert this model and return control of how the site would appear back with themselves. That's why flash websites were so popular in the early 2000s - it gave them complete control of how the site would appear, giving the user none. Gradually they've figured out ways to take away control from the user using regular html, which is why you now have websites where you can't zoom, can't resize fonts, everything is locked to three columns (menu, text, ads) which you can't move, resize, or rearrange, etc.

      The way Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the web, there would be no need for a desktop site or a mobile site. You just create one site, and it's up to the visitor's browser to format it in a way which makes it most usable on the display device. The need for different desktop and mobile sites only arises if you design your site so that it will only operate at a certain resolution or screen size.

    10. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And provide everyone with a porter to follow behind them carrying the phablet around.

    11. Re:Mobile Web by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 1

      My eyes aren't great and my fingers are fat, can we please have text readable at approximately the same apparent size and links that have reasonable bounding boxes across all devices?

    12. Re: Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using a single media query, I build sites every day that work as expected across various devices and varying screen resolutions.

      Responsive design is only complicated if you make it complicated.

    13. Re: Mobile Web by sexconker · · Score: 1

      "Responsive" design is a wasp's nest of complicated, half-working, hacky CSS with javascripty shit on top . Unless your layout and content are brain dead simple.

      Not all content works that way, and not all web sites can focus on style or presentation. Many websites need to get shit done and need to present a lot of content cleanly. And yes, sometimes we have to use tables!!

    14. Re:Mobile Web by sexconker · · Score: 1

      No, that's not "responsive design". That's just a minimal design, which is great if you have minimal content. Responsive design means fucking shit up all over the place on different devices (based on resolution, browser strings, etc.). Sane navigation on a desktop site? It better be a javascript-enabled, overlaying shitshow behind a "swipe" action or a "hamburger" button on the mobile site!

    15. Re:Mobile Web by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

      The web still is "configurable by the user and browser". The problem is on mobile all the browsers are a locked down POS that you aren't allowed to do anything with.

    16. Re:Mobile Web by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      please have text readable at approximately the same apparent size and links that have reasonable bounding boxes across all devices?

      No, because the browser on your device does not adhere to any known standards (unless by accident), and the standards do not agree on how big "12 points" is on a mobile screen.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    17. Re:Mobile Web by gilgongo · · Score: 1

      As a (former) employee of one of, if not the biggest, news websites in the world, I can tell you their publisher said almost exactly the same thing. Mobile optimised tends to mean at best "laid out a bit differently" and at worst "crippled".

      --
      "And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
    18. Re: Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I despise the "mobile friendly" content that generates pages dynamically, making it impossible to go back to where you were. Slashdot is an example of this. Reddit is similarly bad, where the site loses its connection and then silently fails when you try to submit comments.

    19. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's just a minimal design, which is great if you have minimal content.

      There's a difference between "minimal content" and "minimal presentation." DJB may be opinionated and rude at times, but he's also a brilliant software engineer and cryptographer. I assure you, the content on his website is anything but "minimal" -- even if the presentation is minimal basic HTML.

      It's unfortunate clueless "web designers" these days think something isn't meaningful just because it doesn't use a super-thin webfont (Open Sans Light is in vogue right now), doesn't have a fancy Javascript presentation with images at the top changing every five seconds, and doesn't have full-length dynamically scrolling images every few paragraphs.

    20. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and the standards do not agree on how big "12 points" is on a mobile screen.

      Then those standards are broken. A point is 1/72 of an inch, and an inch is pretty well defined.

      Imagine if a carpenter showed up to work with a "mobile measuring tape", that didn't follow the standard for the size of an inch...

    21. Re: Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i don't like "mobile web" sites because there's too much emphasis on NOTHING. everything turns into click bait on content sites, no actual content skimmable on main pages. and corporate sites? forget it, the fucking vertical scrolling NOTHINGNESS that says absolutely NOTHING. it's total bullshit... then top it off with the shitty "three bars" navigation menu crap.. on a desktop.. what.the.fuck.

      the best "mobile friendly" sites are the ones from WAY THE FUCK BACK before even layout tables ruled the web (kinda like this... hell, gopher:// would be more platform independent and infinitely more useful than the utter shit that pollutes the web today.

    22. Re: Mobile Web by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      I hate the auto load so much.

      I'll be trying to compare products, and accidentally click something instead of opening a new tab, all if the sudden k need to scroll and let load and scroll and let it load, to get back to my place.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    23. Re:Mobile Web by thegarbz · · Score: 0

      The way Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the web

      Is representative of the rest of the 80s and early 90s. We don't do anything the same anymore when it comes to design, layout, UI, or human machine interactions. The approach of not limiting a page to a specific display was ultimately quite limiting, so the web evolved.

      The need for different desktop and mobile sites only arises if you design your site so that it will only operate at a certain resolution or screen size.

      No. The need for different desktop and mobile sites arises out of ensuring the best kind of interaction between your user and your device without putting yourself into an incredibly limiting scenario involving serving up text and letting the client deal with the issue.

      Just because screen resolutions are dynamic doesn't mean the text layout is ideal for all screen sizes (and orientations), it doesn't mean your interaction is ideal for all interfaces (mouse pointer vs multitouch), it doesn't mean your page layout is ideal for all situations (maximizing mobile screen use while restricting aspect ratios on desktops so text isn't just one really really long line across a screen).

      Horses for Courses.

    24. Re:Mobile Web by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      It wasn't just designers. Ad companies like Google were big culprits in subverting this vision. If your content is delivered in a structured form, then it's trivial for the receiver to just not display the bits that are adverts. On the other hand, if you get a big glob of executable code that produces some output then it's a lot harder to identify which bits are real content and which are cruft.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    25. Re:Mobile Web by jrumney · · Score: 1

      My phone has a large enough screen and a high enough resolution that I just prefer to browse the full site. Can we stop the "mobile web" shit?

      Mostly this is because sites (m.slashdot.org, and groups.google.com are the two that immediately spring to mind) cripple their mobile sites to the point where they are unusable (no "mark all as read" in groups.google.com, difficult to quote parent, javascript which actively works against editing your reply, and a login that only logs you in to half the site among other problems on m.slashdot.org)

    26. Re:Mobile Web by jrumney · · Score: 1

      CSS tables? I'm guessing you mean inline-block elements, which are great for layout, but they aren't tables.

    27. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It isn't the designers doing this. It is their clients who demand the page must look exactly like the piece of shit they scribbled on the back of an envelope.

    28. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I mean CSS tables using "display: table-cell". For example:

      <style>
      #table { display: table; }
      #tr {display: table-row; }
      #td_left {display: table-cell; }
      #td_right {display: table-cell; }
      </style>
      <div id=table>
      <div id=tr>
      <div id=td_left>
      Left column
      </div>
      <div id=td_right>
      Right column
      </div>
      </div>
      </div>

      Sorry for not using a term which can be easily googled (Googling "CSS table" gives a bunch of pages about adding CSS style to the table element, which is next to useless [1] for using the same HTML for both desktop and small screen mobile browsers).

      [1] CSS like table {display: block; } is possible but should not be done, for the same reason using operator overloading to make "-" act like addition is a bad idea unless making an IOC++CC entry [2]
      [2] No there thankfully is not an IOC++CC out there, only IOCCC

    29. Re:Mobile Web by nathana · · Score: 1

      My phone has a large enough screen and a high enough resolution that I just prefer to browse the full site. Can we stop the "mobile web" shit?

      Yes. Can all of it, starting with Slashdot's own mobile site.

    30. Re:Mobile Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know what the GP was talking about, but CSS does have a table layout feature. It begins with display: table, display: table-row etc. From there you can reproduce just about everything HTML tables can do with the exception of colspan and rowspan.

  2. what if they serve two versions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I've seen plenty of desktop-focused sites that return one thing to the googlebot and another to normal browsers. E.g, they present a page to google that contains MySearchTerm, yet this does not appear on the page returned to browsers. Or sometimes the content they claim to have is hidden behind a login page, yet the googlebot still points to the page for that term.

    What's to stop them from doing the same with interstitials? Pretend to anything coming from google's IP ranges that there are none, yet have them for everyone else.

    1. Re:what if they serve two versions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because when you get caught, the punishment is harsh. My boss made me serve pages with a lot of extra spammy content if the user agent was Google. That got us to the top of the search results for a while, but after a couple of months, Google removed us completely. Our company name is a nonsensical word, so even before our search engine spam, we were on top if you searched for the company name. Now, synonyms for our name appear above our web pages unless you put our company name in quotes.

    2. Re:what if they serve two versions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BMW?

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4685750.stm

  3. Market Power by fishwallop · · Score: 1

    Lemme guess ... Google's own ad sales don't provide for interstitial ads.

    1. Re:Market Power by quenda · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Google appears to be applying the rule to themselves.
      The worst "interstitials" to me are the YouTube ads ("skip in 5 seconds"),

      So by this policy, you can avoid the youtube ads by finding the video in Google search!
      I just tried a whole bunch of video searches, and it goes straight to the video with no advert. But click another clip within youtube ...

      Sorry if this is not news :)

  4. It's about time Google did something about popups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's about time Google did something about those full screen popups which pop up every time you go to some webpage, usually asking for your email address. It's annoying to start reading something and being interrupted by a popup which covers the entire page.

    As an aside, I find Google's ads have become annoying enough I recently removed them from my pages, despite the minor financial hit. When a webmaster asked for text-only ads, Google used to give you only text; now they give you pictures and sometimes even animations in their "text-only" ads.

    I used to not need to use adblock to comfortably surf the internet; I could keep supporting websites by looking at and sometimes clicking their ads. Annoying ads were kept at bay with a click-to-show-flash extension and by disabling looping animated gifs. I really wish there was an adblocker extension out there with a click-to-blacklist mode; I don't think all ad-supported websites should suffer just because a few bad players have obnoxious javascript ads. And, yes, I do support quality content on the web with a subscription to the New York Times.

  5. i would think browser info that gets sent back by FudRucker · · Score: 1

    the info the browser provides would handle that, so when someone is using a website and their browser says this is an android device with a screen resolution of #x# that phones & tablets use the website should automatically serve up mobile optimized web pages, and when the browser said this is a Linux or windows device with an even bigger screen resolution of #x# that most laptops and desktop PCs have then the server should serve up laptop/desktop optimized web pages,

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    1. Re:i would think browser info that gets sent back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First, the only thing sent to the server is the user agent, which has the name of the browser and some information about the OS and CPU. It does not contain anything about size.

      Second, my tablet has a 1920x1200 display. My PC has a 1440x900 (my new one will be 1920x1080, but that's still less than 1920x1200).

      My tablet has a full screen browser. My PC is running a windowing user interface.

      The result is that when sites use Javascript to check the browser size, I often get the desktop version on my tablet, and the mobile version on my PC.

  6. How is this change useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to non-mobile users?

    1. Re:How is this change useful by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 2

      What, both of you? Why don't you ask the other guy and then let us all know...

    2. Re:How is this change useful by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      I am thinking the same thing.

      I just see this as Google flexing their muscles and weighting their search results to favor their own platform.

      I browse the web in a standard PC web browser. I cannot stand browsing the web on anything else. To me, "mobile friendly" means "crippled"

      Hopefully, mobile optimized searches are context aware and will only highly weight "mobile friendly" sites when searching from a mobile device.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  7. Base ranking on the device being used to search! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, they're going to force mobile friendly down everyone's throat. More spacing, less density, etc all destroy the large screen desktop experience. If a site wants to target mobile users, let them target them. If a site does not want to target mobile users, why punish them? Track which are mobile friendly and weight the results if searching from a phone. Simple. But that wouldn't help promote Android...

  8. A don't disable zoom. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do mobile websites disable zoom, when zoom is most useful on mobile devices? That's one of the major reasons I always try to load full desktop versions whenever possible and HATE pages that won't let me escape mobile web hell.

    1. Re: A don't disable zoom. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      For what it is worth, I use this javascript saved as a favorite. On ios, you need to save ANYTHING as a favorite, then edit the title to something useful (like "Enable Zoom") and then change the link to this javascript mess:

      javascript:document.querySelector('meta%5Bname=viewport%5D').setAttribute('content','width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=10.0,user-scalable=1');

    2. Re:A don't disable zoom. by Mandrel · · Score: 1

      Why do mobile websites disable zoom, when zoom is most useful on mobile devices?

      Probably because it's too easy to accidentally zoom when you're scrolling around and clicking on buttons and links. Perhaps such sites should have a permanent enable/disable zoom button or gesture.

    3. Re:A don't disable zoom. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. It takes two fucking fingers to zoom. If you are zooming by accident, you have a neurological disorder.

    4. Re:A don't disable zoom. by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Probably because it's too easy to accidentally zoom when you're scrolling around and clicking on buttons and links.

      You were great in Back To The Future, not so much in Teen Wolf.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
  9. Good job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good job, no more Google Sites in Google search.

  10. Now to get rid of by Rinikusu · · Score: 1

    "Congratulations! You have won a free iPad!" survey full page bullshit.

    --
    If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
  11. Re:Base ranking on the device being used to search by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not a big deal. Mobile-friendly is a simple matter of having a proper HTML page and a CSS stylesheet for mobile users. As long as a site doesn't use tables for layout, making the site mobile friendly is generally a one-day affair to write the mobile CSS.

  12. I don't understand companies that spend money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to create content then hide it behind an uncloseable popup. What's the point in going to the trouble of making a web site if you don't allow anyone to see it?

  13. Re:It's about time Google did something about popu by KiloByte · · Score: 2

    It's about time Google did something about those full screen popups which pop up every time you go to some webpage

    You mean, like that shit from consent.google.com with the parent page whitened out with blocked scroll even if the consent thingy is prevented by a request policy?

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  14. Answer this survey question first by omnichad · · Score: 1

    Isn't it Google that powers the "answer this survey question to gain access to this news article" thing? I swear I remember seeing their logo on it.

  15. They don't want to punish advertisers. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    On the web, interstitials are web pages displayed before or after an expected content page, often to display advertisements or confirm the user's age (prior to showing age-restricted material). Most interstitial advertisements are delivered by an ad server. - wikipedia

    Everyone but advertisers would prefer if sites with lame adverts before the content were punished. I hope to see this feature added to DuckDuckGo.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:They don't want to punish advertisers. by FudRucker · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I do want to punish advertisers, i want them to be stuffed in the trunk of a car and driven out to Death Valley Desert and abandoned to walk to the next civiliztion, and while they are gone all their computers completely destroyed, right after their credit cards is maxed out by identity thieves, i hate advertising bitterly, they stick their shit in everything, radio, TV, billboards on the sides of the road, billboards all over town, now finally the internet has been able to give the advertisers a little bit of a battle and i hope like heck the people that hate advertisers can finally win and get an ad-free spot on this earth without all their GOD DAMN advertising

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    2. Re:They don't want to punish advertisers. by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 1

      I feel like you're being way too kind.

      --
      Eat the rich.
  16. Re: I don't understand companies that spend money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So many newspaper sites do that. Why pay someone to write an article if you're not going to allow users to read it?

  17. Re: nike free run 3.0 pas cher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Totally agree

  18. Someone else's ads ads by penguinoid · · Score: 2

    punish mobile sites that use interstitials.

    Those ads, they're not Google's ads. They need to die.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  19. Unified UX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Users should have the freedom to meddle with how webpages are shown on their side, but it's also their own responsibility if it means things would break here and there.

  20. A good start... by rickb928 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Next up:

    - Demoting sites that prompt you to install 'their mobile app'. This is just their desperate plea to get even more data from you. And given what Google and that desktop site gathers already, that's a pretty impressive feat.

    - Demote sites that pop a notification request. I don't even know you, website, and you want into my circle of trust? Huh?

    - And can we get an amen for punishing sites that pop up Android Virus/Malware Detected, Battery and Memory Optimizer, and any other free and fraudulent apps?

    And with that, half the web dies. So sad.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    1. Re:A good start... by dwillden · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the auto-redirects to some lame game in the Play store. I clicked on your link to read your news article. Not to install a game.

      --
      I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
    2. Re:A good start... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I wish they would just allow uBlock. You can run a version of AdBlock, but it's limited.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:A good start... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And with that, half the web dies. So sad.

      Actually, I think that's the half of the web we don't want...maybe not so sad?

  21. Dear effing Idiot Webmasters... by knorthern+knight · · Score: 2

    Puh-h-h-lease...

    Stop playing games trying to identify the user agent and sending to different pages,. Mozilla has gone off the deep end, and there are multiple forks of Firefox (I use Pale Moon). Many idiot webmasters try to match user-agent to one of the "big 3 or 4". If the match fails, they assume it's some weird mobile browser, and force even desktop browsers to the mobile site. If I specify "bad.example.com/", I want the desktop version, not the mobile version.

    If you absolutely insist on doubling your workload, go ahead and create a separate "m.bad.example.com/", but please don't try to force users to it, because it probably sucks. A couple of "obligatory" cartoons for you...
    http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/...
    https://xkcd.com/869/

    --

    I'm not repeating myself
    I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
    1. Re:Dear effing Idiot Webmasters... by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      So just change your UA to match one of the big 3 or 4...

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re:Dear effing Idiot Webmasters... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even that will often fail; some sites are using other fields in place of user agent, or being hyper-sensitive about version numbers.

  22. Re:Base ranking on the device being used to search by AvitarX · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing, weighing rank on mobile devices.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  23. Context by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    The report adds: "If your site is in the 15 percent group

    What 15% group? If you're going to chop out paragraphs from an article, at least make sure they make sense by themselves.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  24. It all makes sense now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A webpage is considered 'mobile friendly' if it meets the following criteria, as detected in real time by Googlebot: Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash; Uses text that is readable without zooming; Sizes content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom; Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

    Oh!

    So it's Google who is responsible for websites getting so shitty nowadays. Now I understand.

    "Mobile Friendly" == "Desktop hostile". Nice to see where Google's priorities lie nowadays.

  25. I never see YouTube ads via by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?...

    Ads rob speed, security (malvertising), privacy (tracking).

    Hosts add speed (hardcodes/adblocks), security (bad sites/poisoned dns), reliability (dns down), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) natively.

    Works vs. caps & PUSH ads.

    Avg. page = big as Doom http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... & ads = 40% of it.

    Hosts != ClarityRay blockable (vs. souled-out to admen inferior wasteful redundant slow usermode addons)

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus (slows you) + less security issues/complexity.

    Compliments firewalls (blocking less used IP addys vs. hosts blocking more used domains) & DNS (lightens dns load).

    Gets data via 10 security sites.

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/... (Verified by Malwarebytes' S. Burn "seen the code & it's safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... )

  26. UBlock = inferior + inefficient vs. hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    UBlock can't do these as well as (or @ all) hosts do 4 speed, security, & reliability:

    1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
    2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnet C&C's
    3.) Protect vs. dyndns botnet C&C's
    4.) Protect vs. DGA botnet C&C's
    5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
    6.) Protect vs. DNS poisoned dns
    7.) Protect vs. trackers
    8.) Protect vs. spam payloads
    9.) Protect vs. phish payloads
    10.) Protect vs. caps
    11.) Get past dns blocks
    12.) Keep off dns request logs
    13.) Speed up 2 ways (adblocks/hardcodes)
    14.) Work on anything webbound multiplatform.
    15.) Ez data edit
    16.) Block ads more efficiently in cpu/ram/I-O use
    17.) UBlock now uses hosts (no DNS benefits vs. dns issues) - poor imitation = "sincerest form of flattery"

    Hosts = native vs. illogically "Bolting on 'MoAr'" & not ClarityRay blockable like addons.

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts (1st resolver) do MORE w/ less in fast kernelmode & before slow usermode addons

    Hosts ~3mb vs. UBlock = 64MB -> http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...

  27. AdBlock = inferior + 'souled-out' vs. hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Adblock can't do (or do as well) 16 things hosts do 4 speed, security & reliability:

    1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
    2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnet C&C servers
    3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnet C&C servers
    4.) Protect vs. DGA botnet C&C servers
    5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
    6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoned/downed dns
    7.) Protect vs. trackers
    8.) Protect vs. spam payloads
    9.) Protect vs. phish payloads
    10.) Protect vs. caps
    11.) Get past dns blocks
    12.) Keep off dns request logs
    13.) Speed up 2 ways (adblocks & hardcodes)
    14.) Work on anything webbound multiplatform.
    15.) Ez data edit
    16.) Block ads more efficiently in cpu/ram/I-O use

    APK

    P.S.=> Ab+ does less vs. hosts less efficiently (a 128-151mb memory hog http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...)

    ClarityRay defeats it

    Ab+'s bribed not to work by default http://www.businessinsider.com...

    AdBlock's SLOWER: http://superuser.com/questions...

    1. Re: AdBlock = inferior + 'souled-out' vs. hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not possible to edit the hosts file on Android unless the device is rooted.

  28. Best adblocker & more vs. threats online by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?...

    Ads rob speed, security (malvertising), privacy (tracking).

    Hosts add speed (hardcodes/adblocks), security (bad sites/poisoned dns), reliability (dns down), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) natively.

    Works vs. caps & PUSH ads.

    Avg. page = big as Doom http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... & ads = 40% of it.

    Hosts != ClarityRay blockable (vs. souled-out to admen inferior wasteful redundant slow usermode addons)

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus (slows you) + less security issues/complexity.

    Compliments firewalls (blocking less used IP addys vs. hosts blocking more used domains) & DNS (lightens dns load).

    Gets data via 10 security sites.

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/... (Verified by Malwarebytes' S. Burn "seen the code & it's safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... )

  29. Re: nike free run 3.0 pas cher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Klingon?

  30. 3 letter answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ADB

    APK