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The Problem With Google AMP (80x24.net)

Posted by msmash on from the genuine-concern dept.

Kyle Schreiber has raised some issues about Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), an open source project unveiled by the company in 2015 with which it aims to accelerate content on mobile devices. He writes on his blog: The largest complaint by far is that the URLs for AMP links differ from the canonical URLs for the same content, making sharing difficult. The current URLs are a mess. They all begin with some form of https://wwww.google.com/amp/ before showing a URL to the AMP version of the site. There is currently no way to find the canonical link to the page without guessing what the original URL is. This usually involves removing either a .amp or ?amp=1 from the URL to get to the actual page. Make no mistake. AMP is about lock-in for Google. AMP is meant to keep publishers tied to Google. Clicking on an AMP link feels like you never even leave the search page, and links to AMP content are displayed prominently in Google's news carousel. This is their response to similar formats from both Facebook and Apple, both of which are designed to keep users within their respective ecosystems. However, Google's implementation of AMP is more broad and far reaching than the Apple and Facebook equivalents. Google's implementation of AMP is on the open web and isn't limited to just an app like Facebook or Apple.

3 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Hate that pos by ZiakII · · Score: 4, Informative

    I actually switched my mobile browser to Bing to avoid Google Amp. If I really need Google I'll go there. But with no option to disable it and a terrible mobile experience I'll stick to Bing *Puke*

    1. Re:Hate that pos by fortfive · · Score: 5, Informative

      Second this approach, except I switched to duck duck go. I find the results to be less useful, unfortunately, although I like their privacy policies and what not better. Still, too many damn amp results.

  2. Re:Google News mobile by alcmena · · Score: 3, Informative

    https://news.google.com/news/i... -- Google News on a mobile browser... Only no AMP, yes native scrolling, as a bonus, revives the ability to open articles in background tabs again. Bookmark it now, thank me later. :)