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The Problem With Google AMP (80x24.net)
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.
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*
They've been using it on Google News for mobile now for a while, I can't stand it. Mainly for the exact reason stated in the blurb, which is that you cannot share news stories. Plus it wastes screen real estate with the Google header at the top. Didn't we go through something like this over a decade ago when iframe came out and everyone was wanting to embed everyone else's content in their web page to show ads and otherwise maintain control over the user? Thanks for taking us back to the dark ages, Google.
Better known as 318230.
"Make no mistake. AMP is about lock-in for Google."
Well, DUH. Is there anyone here who doesn't think this mainly exists to provide Google with more specific information regarding our individual browsing habits?
Fortunately, we can easily choose to never use it. And I'm assuming that, at some point, someone will come up with a de-obfuscation service that lets you get at the target URL without going through AMP (for those times when a person sends you a google.com/amp/ link).
#DeleteChrome
I can't share the page nor can I block ads. Luckily, I've found an iOS app (Opener) that lets me open the page without AMP. It's a hassle, but it works.
I no longer use Google News because of it ,and if it gets any worse, I'll drop Google as my search engine.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
I just have my mobile browser spoof its user agent string to indicate that it's a desktop one. Problem solved.
If you need to link a page, request the desktop version. It's annoying, but that's the easiest way I've found to do it.
Put some javascript in your page and let google host a copy of your page.
AMP done right:
Restrict to a subset of HTML without scripts, canvas, etc. and rely on mobile browsers to optimize for it. If you want to, introduce a new doctype for AMP-HTML.