How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer
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For publishers, amp is about trying to top the results on google search and capture traffic, it's their only motivation to publish their content using amp, and the only metric they look in order to evaluate the results.
Once they have their amp content, they will look how to load it with ads and tracking, which very conveniently is supported on amp, just as they do in their regular sites.
So the "fast" part, besides using their CDN, actually comes from limiting what you can do on almost every other part of the site, you can only do the stuff that is packed in the amp components controlled by google, which in practice means that google controls the web behavior.
Newspapers display a text and an image and very rarely an interactive content(Election day maps and charts, mostly).
Is there a reason FROM USERS PERSPECTIVE to have different website codebase for each publisher?
For years the Web community kept creating new JavaScript libraries every day and all these web libraries were about providing a different way to do the same thing. No one ever created anything for the users, in fact, AMP is the first web technology that improves the user experience. It's loading fast and not too much stuff happens to display a text and an image.
Web people are mad at Google and I think they should be but all this happens because the web publishers refuse to compete on User Experience. They all optimize for the clickbitiest title or controversial topic and Google came and steamrolled their publishing tech.
I can't really blame Google for this one, you can check it out - I am critical of Google but I am more critical of the news business or the web tech community that optimized for very bad KPI that destroyed democracy, made web unpleasant and are now crying because of someone demolished their low-quality business.
From USERS PERSPECTIVE, AMP is a godsend. You can quickly view and skim low-quality content. The alternative is slowly viewing and skimming low-quality content.
It seems like the web technologists are unaware that they are dealing with real human beings, optimizing blindly for page views and CPMs.
AMP is Youtube for written content. A strealined conent delivery platform prioritizing UX that the publishers failed to create themselves all these years.
> A strealined conent delivery platform prioritizing UX that the publishers failed to create
what you re implying is, Google failed to improve their algorithms to bypass obvious SEOs, so they are forcing everyone to use a dumbed down platform that is harder to SEO - for now!
People don't go with reading plans to websites, the titles are optimized to bring you there and you don't know what's in the article. More often than not, the text on the website is not what the title made you believe it is. You can't plan ahead, you want to quickly find out what is this all about.
The article themselves are usually garbage optimized for SEO, long paragraphs of sentences that say the same thing but with different keywords. If that's not enough, they try to sway attention with ads and popups. Even if you had a plan about reading an article, the publisher's plan about you is different(tip: it's not about letting you read in peace).
The Web is horrible, it's even more horrible on mobile. AMP is an improvement.
then google is doing a bad job of presenting these sites to users, since obviously these sites should lose their rank, since users leave them. Google surely thinks bounce rates are important, no?
> The article themselves are usually garbage optimized for SEO, long paragraphs of sentences
and how is AMP fixing this? and who is responsible for SEO having these incentives? SEO literally means they optimize for what google wants
AMP is fixing this because you can take a peek into the content almost instantaneously so you can just see what is this all about and leave.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/07/search-ads...
Is it? The only place I've ever seen push that view is Google. I've never seen any non-Google information reflecting that.
But if somebody's leaving a page that has content they need because it doesn't load in 1 second, then I'd say they're a dumbass.
- Mobify found that decreasing their homepage's load time by 100 milliseconds resulted in a 1.11% uptick in session-based conversion
- Retailer AutoAnything experienced a 12-13% increase in sales after cutting page load time in half
- Walmart discovered that improving page load time by one second increased conversions by 2%
does 1.11% sound a lot an is it statistically significant?
cut page in half from what to what? from 30 to 15 seconds? or from 2 to 1?
improving one second like how? from 12 to 11 or from 2 to 1? and is 2% really substantial?
The major problem is the download size anyway, and most of it is google-served ads and trackers. Amp is making this asynchronous, but afaik it doesn’t get rid of the ads
I haven't benchmarked it, so I can't actually speak from anything but wild speculation, but Google AMP might actually be making this problem worse.
After 10 articles, the transferred data was 28MB. I visited the Guardian's own website and it fetched 3MB.
So, It looks like Google does not preload a huge amount of data.
ps: I use ad-blocking and cleaned the cache.
Just connect your iPhone to a Mac, open Safari desktop and in the Develop menu, you will see your mobile phone. When you open a page on mobile Safari, you will be able to see it from the Develop menu and when you click on it, the full Safari developer tools will open in a new window. Works just like the regular developer tools.
In my experience, 99.9 percentile is more like 2~30 seconds in NorCal with a potentially sub-optimal ISP. I expect this to be even worse in developing countries like south/southeast asia.
Do you pay for youtube? Because the vanilla youtube experience is an ad-ridden UX nightmare.
If AMP is YouTube, AMP sucks.
The main difference is that with many websites things jump around when on Youtube the design is clearly defined. There's no cognitive load in trying to find the content between those "subscribe" popups and menus etc.
They clearly designed their experience with the understanding that you are there to watch a video.
Actually, YouTube's website is so good that the first thing that appears on the page is the video and it starts playing when the rest of the page(like, subscribe buttons suggested videos etc.) is still loading and not rendered.
Most websites on the other hand act as if the content was the bite to lure you there and try to make you subscribe/create an account/ allow notifications/show you ads and it's their failure if you actually happen to consume the content that was promised to you from the link you clicked.
Completely different experiences.
This right here.
The first time I found myself on an AMP page, I thought "Holy crap, this page is fast and responsive!"
It was a couple months later I started seeing hate for AMP on HN and was kind of surprised. I understand the dislike of Google basically taking over, but I feel like Google is telling publishers "Since you guys can't figure out how to make fast web pages, we're gonna basically do it for you".
> AMP is Youtube for written content.
A few commenters have taking issue with this, but I interpreted it to mean early YouTube. Before YouTube became a thing, sharing videos online was difficult for a non-technical person. Just like YouTube made it easy to share videos, AMP has made it easy to make responsive pages.
Though a key difference is that it isn't hard to make responsive mobile web pages. Site owners have just decided that tracking, metrics, and advertising is more important than UX.
No, the alternative is quickly skimming low-quality content with an adblocker and reader mode.
How is that abusing their monopoly search position? Abusing their monopoly search position would be making publishers integrate directly with them to enable preload, like Apple News. Instead, they ask publishers to serve documents that can safely be prerendered, and all their competitors get to (and do!) consume those documents as well to enable safe prerendering from their own sites.
Google has a de facto monopoly on site rankings, which gives it de facto editorial control over the content of the Internet down to a very fine level.
If Google decides to drop a site from search, that site loses traffic and is effectively removed from visibility.
This is not a user choice. Users do not to get to say "Well, that site is too slow for me, so I won't visit it again. And actually I don't like the content either."
It's not a site owner choice. Owners can't respond to user preferences by improving performance or offering different content.
It's a Google choice. And the reasons for Google's choices are typically opaque, largely unstated, and never negotiated directly with site owners.
It's absolutely unacceptable for a single unaccountable corporation to have this level level of control over global information infrastructure.
In fact the whole idea of generic but opaque site ranking is toxic to an open Internet, and always has been. The idea that page rank has some kind of objective user value - as opposed to monopoly value - has always been debatable.
It was tolerable conceit in the days of Alta Vista when search was a research project, and some level of good faith was assumed.
But Google has trashed that good faith by operating like a bad actor - and monopolist - in numerous ways, AMP being the most recent example.
So no - not generic. Not even close.
No need to judge it based on its technical merit: a significant amount of people hate it, yet here it is. End of.
This is not a legal question (yet), this is a moral question. The legal [and technical] question is relevant, but not the be all end all of any discussion. People sometimes also just want to discuss how they feel. It’s relevant to get consensus about that. And people feel bad about AMP.
That is much different than saying that Google is using AMP to make it easier to control results which was what the parent seemed to be implying. If this discussion is really not about AMP at all, but just about Google flexing their monopoly to do things customers don't want, then why is AMP the technology getting criticized for it? Why weren't we criticizing using SSL everywhere when Google depriortitzed non-SSL results?
I mean it's also naive, and wrong, but it's cute too.
No sane person on the planet would consider a person using a search engine for free, "the customer". The customer is the person who buys something - in Google's case, advertising.
You are correct, most people are leaving this out. I think an emphasis on asking why Google is pushing AMP, and whether that interest aligns with consumers, would be helpful in this thread.
Is that really not obvious to some?
But the point made up-thread was that "controlling things" is not intrinsically bad. The problem was that (according to some users) Google was abusing a monopoly position to control things in a way that would be beneficial to itself, but harmful to others. The question the parent to my comment was asking was, beneficial to itself how? You saying that Google is "controlling things" just takes us back to where we started, but doesn't answer the question of what Google stands to gain.
Let me give an example. Suppose by "controlling things" you mean incentivizing ("""forcing""") web developers to create pages that are better because they have lighter scripts and higher security standards for third party content. (In fact, this is what some supporters say Google is doing.) I don't think most people would have a problem with that. So presumably critics have something interesting to say about what "controlling things" really means that explains why it's bad in this particular case.
Well that point is wrong. If you can't see how a single, privacy abusing company having dominant control over the web is bad, I can't fucking help you.
I agree that that's bad. I also don't think you (or most people in this thread) have made coherent arguments for why AMP is helping Google do that. That was the parent comment's point, and I tried to highlight that because it's downvoted.
Note that "control things" is a different claim than "having dominant control over the web". It's obvious that in some sense Google is doing the first. It's obvious that the second is bad. The issue is how you get from saying that they're doing the first thing to saying that they're doing the second thing.
Google has a monopoly position, granted. But not everything a monopolist does is bad just because they're a monopolist. Another example: one thing Google does is lower the page rank of sites that show the full content to the GoogleBot but paywall real users. I think this is great! It's an attempt to control the way publishers design websites and the way their servers respond to user agents, but the point of that control is making the web a better place. Many people feel similarly about AMP: that it's getting publishers to create faster pages that make the web a better place. Can you say why they're wrong?
It is used by the major search engines in every major market, so yes, they would be forced to adopt AMP. Compare to Apple News, which gives the publisher even less control.
Once again, how is it abusing their monopoly position if all their competitors get to benefit from it for free?
Finally, how do you propose to enable safe prerendering on the web that you would be fine with? RSS enables the same thing but takes even more control away from the publisher, but you're presumably fine with that. Not a single person in all these AMP rant articles that pollute HN has ever proposed an alternative, with 99% of the ranters, including this one, not even understanding the basic fact that prerendering is the thing that AMP enables.
The web is supposed to be an open standard.
If Google wants to go off and make Google Web a thing, where it only allows Chrome to view content hosted by some variation of *.google.com, thats their choice, but that isn't "the web".
If you don't want AMP content, don't click on it from Google, Bing, Yandex, Twitter, etc. Exactly the same idea.
> It only allows Chrome to view content hosted by some variation of *.google.com
That is not what AMP does. It allows browsers to safely prerender content from any link aggregator, including Bing and others. It does not change what Chrome can do. The page is just a normal HTML page served by the link aggregator's AMP cache.
Think about how you would implement safe prerendering. Can you come up with any option where the link aggregator doesn't host the page? There's your answer.
It prefers instant loading pages because that's what users want. If not, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo, or any of the other search engines that also use AMP would simply rank differently to beat Google.
There are users in this thread that seem to like it quite a lot because it's faster than the original site, because it limits the amount of crap the original site can run. The only reason I don't like AMP is because I don't like an intermediary like Google rendering pages for me and probably tracking what I do on them. That's ... not even close to something on most people's radars, so there's no way "everyone" hates it for that reason.
I suspect most people have never heard of AMP and just like it when sites load fast.
AMP is the solution to that long-term loss. It's not the best possible solution, but it's the best that we currently have.
Prior to AMP, the web didn't give a rat's ass about performance.
The web infrastructure we have today can respond to pages blindly fast if proper optimization is done, bloated front end frameworks and malvertising counter all of that to draw it down to molasses speeds - and the "I want to server my stuff to my users" argument is only valid if it's to extracting ad revenue from them - I think it's just time to reeducate people on the fact that ads may subsidize content but they can't fully sponsor it outside of niche situations.
Are they though? With the search engine example, how do you know that the engine is not biasing your opinion so that you act against your own self-interest and to the benefit of the advertisers?
The AMP situation is a bit more complicated, but how are you sure that AMP is beneficial to you in the broad, long-term sense?
AMP is about stopping....that. It's indescribable how horrible these companies have become.
1. Auto-playing ads 2. Scroll-jacking 3. Overlay...after overlay... after overlay. 4. Popover 5. Paywall 6. Popover again for good taste. 7. Oops you scrolled too far better redirect you to another page entirely. 8. You wanted the video version of this article right? Better force you to read the article in 20% of the screen so all of our ads, bars, and video can fit on the page.
You mean Google is using performance, in a meaningful way, to drive SERP and Carousel placement?
If so, I disagree. They talk about it. They don't do it in a way that drives behaviour. They could.
A significant drop plus a webmaster tools message that says why, would work.
Despite all the claims that AMP is only faster because of preload, if you actually look at these HTML sites on big news orgs they are MONSTROSITIES. Check out dev tools, the number of network requests is wild. The page is so insanely dynamic do old / slow computers even run it well?
From script size to dome/paint reflows etc etc to third party javascript having total access to your page - much of that is limited with AMP. I think third party javascript is forced into an iframe sandbox, can only be async with a web worker, limited in size acrosss ALL scripts etc.
If Google actually wanted to improve the web, they wouldn't be splintering it, they would reward publishers with better search placement for building user-friendly sites. As it is, AMP is little more than a way to ensure the "Google" web is better than the non-Google web. Which of course funnels money into Google's pockets.
Then they're not HTML, are they? As other commenters have pointed out, nobody is using the constrained set of AMP as their main page, precisely because it's not "just HTML". (And specifically, Google controls which subset of HTML this is.)
A square has four sides that are equal length. Does that make it not a rectangle?
> As other commenters have pointed out, nobody is using the constrained set of AMP as their main page
People don't use squares where they need oblong rectangles, but that doesn't mean squares are not rectangles.
> And specifically, Google controls which subset of HTML this is.
No, the technical steering committee of the AMP project at the OpenJS Foundation determines that. Most of the members of that committee do not work for Google.
You're omitting the context of that quote for trite point-scoring. If I was advertised a browser that "supported HTML" I would very reasonably expect that it had a reasonable set of features, perhaps score well on compatibility benchmarks, and in general make an effort to conform to the relevant standards. If all it did was render <p> tags it would still be technically correct (it supports HTML!) but I would rightfully be less than pleased.
> No, the technical steering committee of the AMP project at the OpenJS Foundation determines that. Most of the members of that committee do not work for Google.
As I have pointed out to you previously (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20731535; I regret the typo), Google has extremely strong control over the Technical Steering Committee; while you are again correct to claim that they do not have a majority position, it would require unanimous coalition of every other member to oppose them.
AMP is not a browser. It is HTML markup. Likewise, nobody claimed that AMP contains all of HTML. By deliberately misconstruing what AMP is, you are the one who is fruitlessly engaging in trite point scoring.
> it would require unanimous coalition of every other member to oppose them.
As I have also pointed out before, their goal is to have even fewer Google members on that committee. Already, anything that benefits only Google would be shot down. Compare to Apple News, which is controlled entirely by Apple or FBIA, controlled entirely by Facebook, or RSS which is no longer updated at all.
Nowhere did I say it was: I was providing an example of a case where technically classifying something correctly may not be what people expect, except I used HTML in my example instead of shapes in an attempt to connect better to the topic at hand.
> nobody claimed that AMP contains all of HTML
The (now somewhat distant) ancestor claimed that AMP is powerful enough to use as essentially a replacement for HTML, and that publishers can use this subset exclusively for all their content. To which I (and others) have counterclaimed that it is not, because we have not seen publishers move to it, which means it is lacking something that HTML is giving them.
> By deliberately misconstruing what AMP is
That was not my intention, and I apologize if I came off that way.
> As I have also pointed out before, their goal is to have even fewer Google members on that committee. Already, anything that benefits only Google would be shot down.
Perhaps you know more about this than I do, but I have seen little movement in this direction or confirmation that Google is divesting themselves of control here.
> Compare to Apple News, which is controlled entirely by Apple or FBIA, controlled entirely by Facebook, or RSS which is no longer updated at all.
You keep bringing this up, but I don't see widespread complaints about Apple News or Facebook Instant Articles (and RSS is beloved to almost everyone I know). I think the key point here is intent: these sources are very clear in what they're doing, how they're doing, and I don't think they feel as "forced" to adopt it.
"The TSC shall have a goal of having no more than 1/3 of the TSC from one employer."
https://amp.dev/community/governance/
This is required to graduate from incubation at OpenJS.
"Have a defined governing body of at least 5 or more members (owners and core maintainers), of which no more than 1/3 is affiliated with the same employer."
https://github.com/openjs-foundation/cross-project-council/b...
> You keep bringing this up, but I don't see widespread complaints about Apple News or Facebook Instant Articles (and RSS is beloved to almost everyone I know).
Which is why I keep bringing it up. Each of those is worse than AMP at solving the same problems that AMP solves, but only AMP gets the rants from people who don't even know what problem AMP solves. They all "force" publishers to use them in exactly the same way.
amp-sticky-ad, amp-video-docking, amp-app-banner
> 4. Popover
amp-fx-flying-carpet
> 5. Paywall
amp-access, amp-access-poool
> 7. Oops you scrolled too far better redirect you to another page entirely.
amp-next-page
> 8. You wanted the video version of this article right? Better force you to read the article in 20% of the screen so all of our ads, bars, and video can fit on the page.
amp-sticky-ad, amp-video-docking
It would be better to just completely penalize blogs that paywall or otherwise make content unreadable. It's not like news articles are ever scarce. I don't know what they're doing as a search engine if I get any results that are this opaque.
A full on AOL style walled garden could be even faster. It could mandate brotli, force a common css base, only offer one kind of ad platform, etc. Should we go there?
A full AOL style walled garden is what Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles are. AMP enables the same speed in a way that any link aggregator can take advantage of without having to strike deals with individual publishers.
AMP also requires I include a Google owned and controlled piece of JavaScript that they can change at any time. That's literally in the "standard". In fact, a bad update borked all AMP pages for quite a while some time ago.
This doesn't happen for me on any of my Android browsers. The problem is likely with your browser. I wouldn't be surprised if Chrome on iOS is buggy just like every other browser available for iOS.
> AMP also requires I include a Google owned and controlled piece of JavaScript that they can change at any time
If you don't want your page to load instantly from Google, Bing, and other link aggregators, don't use it. Same with Apple News, which has more ornery integration requirements. I, as a user, will simply skip over your links to find faster ones. If you don't give users what they want, what do you expect will happen?
Right. Would be a shame if somethin' bad were to happen to my little website, eh Vinnie?
They're talking about a feature built into Safari on iOS that allows you to swipe between pages from the left and right edges of the screen. Since all browsers on iOS use Safari as the base, they will inherit this behavior unless they take specific steps to disable it, which most don't.
AMP breaks that behavior and although I don't use it, many many people on iOS do and are accustomed to it.
When I continued with my general statement about developers not understanding their platforms, I can see how that can be interpreted as a personal attack, and for that I apologise to soyyo and to the readers of this forum.
Is giving Google that much control ideal? Of course not, but from a user perspective it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Ironically the amp page is artificially slow when blocking amp’s JS because they force an 8 second delay - via required boilerplate css - before content is visible.
That's out of date now, though; despite still being part of the required boilerplate CSS for AMP pages, I can't find that delay in any of the https://amp.dev/ pages (the ampbyexample.com replacement demo site).
This is really shady.
If you disable all js, there is no delay. If you specifically block amp js, there is a delay. There could certainly be a shady reason for this, but the justification makes sense: one of the goals of AMP is to have, basically, a single, correct, initial paint. That's why images are statically sized and amp sticks placeholders there until the real images load. The js delay exists to allow the site to fetch the js and use it to correctly render the initial paint, even on a slow/flaky connection where the js takes a bit to fetch.
<style>
body { animation:-amp-start 8s steps(1,end) 0s 1 normal both}
@keyframes -amp-start{from{visibility:hidden}to{visibility:visible}}
</style>
<noscript>
<style amp-boilerplate>
body{animation:none}
</style>
</noscript>
The only two cases where the 8s is relevant are: the network connection is so bad that the javascript file fails to load within 8s and the useragent has explicitly blocked the one javascript file on the page, without blocking javascript overall.
Unfortunately... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000067823
Certainly an ad blocker can be used to block any URL, but I don't know of any that block this one by default. If there are any, let me know and I'm happy to file issues to get that fixed!
If a user chooses to block this particular resource which the page needs to load, then the page still loads after 8s.
Similarly, if the site owner chooses, they can run the AMP Toolbox optimizer (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ampproject/toolbox-optimizer) which lays out the page server-side and removes this CSS flash for most documents. Some documents can't be laid out until the viewport size is known.
Some people don't want to load resources from Google's servers, and they shouldn't be punished for it. That JS file isn't needed for AMP pages to load. People don't need to load JS to read text and view images. I don't think there is any reasonable argument to have any users hit an 8-second delay.
One problem is that Google wants AMP to replace HTML. I've already seen AMP pages in the Google search results (on desktop), and at least one large website so far appears to be built entirely in AMP.[1]
Google already sends desktop users to Wikipedia's mobile site from some of their listings, so I wouldn't be surprised if Google eventually starts to send desktop users to AMP pages. Google benefits when people visit AMP sites, because Google will be able to spoof the domains and serve the content themselves, giving them increased control over publishers.
[1] independent.co.uk, but they removed the CSS that delays page loading.
The company is an advertising company. If 90+% of your revenue comes from one thing, that's what you are. Anything else is a gimmick.
That tech fanboys continue to ignore or refute this fact about Google just shows how much Kool aid they've consumed, I assume by skipping the drinking part and going straight to Kool Aid baths and Kool aid enemas.
Blocking third party resources on a site is not a "bug" that needs to be "fixed".
I mean, if the goal is to make the page display only once it's fully loaded, and the point of amp is to make pages load quickly, eight seconds seems gratuitous. Even slow sites load within eight seconds.
(I don't deliberately use any Google products, so I'm completely unfamiliar with amp.)
Until the javascript has loaded (a single cacheable javascript file: https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js ), the browser can't lay out the resources on the page (images for example).
If the browser rendered the page before layout, it would likely look pretty bad. Then when the javascript arrived, the document would layout again moving elements around. This is typically referred to as the "Flash of Unstyled Content" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_of_unstyled_content) and is considered by some to be a negative user experience. Many web pages outside AMP take a similar approach to hiding the content until the layout has completed.
The 8 second CSS animation is only present as an "escape hatch" in case the javascript never loads. The specific value was chosen as a time that probably indicates the javascript will never load. Note that if javascript is disabled entirely, the page is rendered immediately via the <noscript> tag. There has been a discussion around changing the 8 second time to something shorter ( https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/22543 ), though it could probably be renewed.
this is true
> That is why AMP has been successful
This is not. If google removes ranking incentive, people will forget about AMP the next day
>This is not. If google removes ranking incentive, people will forget about AMP the next day
Google giving ranking incentive to sites that are faster seems like the exact sort of thing they should be doing.
Yes. It should give ranking incentive based on actual speed, not AMP support.
However, if you want to get into Google's mobile carousel above the normal search results, you have to serve AMP pages and let Google cache them.
Really? I thought Google's purpose was to find information in the web, not to give me fast links. If I am looking for an article, I want that article, not a different but faster one. If I am looking for a piece of information, I want the best fit, not the second or third best but faster fit.
[1] One of the nicer features of HN is that it is snappy and responsive - ime the polar opposite of many non-AMP news sites.
I'd want Google to give me the accurate, well-researched site. When the difference between "fast" and "slow" is a matter of seconds (or often milliseconds), I'm not sure why better information delivered a few seconds later should be ranked lower.
Moreover that even if google could give me the canonical result[0] to my query its likely I will need to visit and view several sites to get the information I am searching for - information I will obtain faster when the sites are faster.
[0]Any ranking will be probabilistic and in all likelihood for common topics there will be multiple candidates within the expected error - why is it so great a sin to order them by accessibility?
This has not been true for more than a decade. The primary use case of the Internet today is to connect users with service providers of all stripes, and not just information repositories.
For most of these, the quality of service is more correlated with their "speed".
No, it is not. Optimized plain old webpages are faster.
If Google wants to promote faster pages then amp should not be promoted in the search results.
It is about capturing traffic, injecting tracking and ads.
AMP probably help making some previously bad-written amd bloated websites less slow, but it doesn't make them fast either.
HN is a fast website. The old reddit was a reasonably fast website. The new reddit (with AMP) is slower on my phone than the old one. It's still faster than the worst websites I browse on mobile, but it's far from being the fastest, and it's one of the slowest I actually use on my phone (simply because I usually don't browse websites that are too slow).
AMP isn't about speed.
There are more alternatives. IIRC the goal in 56k days was to make the page load inside 10 seconds. People managed.
Applications used to fit on a floppy disk. Websites used to be a few K in size. AMP might be successful (if it's even considered successful), but only for a short while. I avoid AMP links when I can, since I don't want the jank, stripped down experience of a site. If I really want a great experience on publishing sites, I just turn on Reader Mode.
And of course, it's preposterous that Google gives preferences to AMP pages on search rankings. It's just as if Amazon prioritizes its own products in its search rankings (not saying it does or doesn't).
Despite your (false) claim that google support sync javascript ad libraries "just as they do in their regular sites" this is 100% false.
The amp javascript components have DOM interaction restrictions, file size restrictions, response restrictions, can't run sync etc.
for amp-ad
"No ad network-provided JavaScript is allowed to run inside the AMP document. Instead, the AMP runtime loads an iframe from a different origin (via iframe sandbox) as the AMP document and executes the ad network’s JS inside that iframe sandbox."
If you can't understand why some of these steps result in both a faster site and one that is more secure I can't help you, but please stop with the misinformation here.
And if i promise to make all ads async and iframe, will google promise to rank my site higher? If not , they are discriminating in favor of their own walled garden system without an objective ruse.
OP didn’t claim this.
Yes OP did.
Whether or not that claim is true is beyond both my expertise and my interest.
So we are very clear, regular HTML websites allow sync javascript and cross site / full dom access etc by trackers and ad platforms. Sync is preferred for a few reasons by ad providers. Lots of regular sites have sync javascript.
On AMP, total javascript size is limited, dom interactions are limited (ie, you can repaint the screen repeatedly with the flyover crap etc) and sync is prohibited and the script generally runs in a sandboxed iframe with a separate web worker.
So I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth, I quotes them exactly, and am pointing out that despite their false claim that you can run same things in AMP you do on regular site - you cannot.
People claiming that AMP is only faster because of preload, that publishers can abuse the user as much as they do with full HTML, that javascript works just as it does on their regular site are lying.
Is AMP perfect? No - folks will always be able to abuse things, but it cuts down on a bunch of common and egregious abuses.
I wonder if part of the issue is some folks here browse with ad-block or other extensions and so don't really experience the web as publishers intend it - because the differences between AMP and non AMP sites is glaring (ignoring the preload question).
GOOGLE CONTROLS THE AD ECOSYSTEM. If they think that's a good idea, do it on regular webpages. Literally, AMP is only faster because Google provided ads are so slow that any more sane architecture can easily run circles around them.
How Google could speed up the web 5000%:
"Starting next month, all ads must be a collection of static assets with no JavaScript outside of this toolbox. We will host the ads and ensure no other JavaScript is executed."
Done.
That is a good thing.
While content publishers are continuing to overload their sites with further trackers, ads, javascript, remotely loading assets which slow down performance, AMP seems like one of the few counterbalances and is pro-user, even if Google's endgame is self-enrichment rather than benevolence.
Content publishers could easily fight back by independently improving their own performance and not forcing mobile users to suck down megabytes of trackers on shaky connections, but they seem to be choosing not to.
Have you tried the normal mobile websites with an adblocker?
AMP isn't about solving one-offs or making users improve their own experience. It's about improving most people's experience by default.
I don't like AMP, it frustrates me, and I think Google's fucking up in their implementation, but it actually _does_ do a good thing.
I also don't think we should simply say "it does a good thing". That would mean we are consciously choosing to concentrate on the good aspects while deliberately ignoring the bad ones.
AMP does have good sides, but this is what makes it especially dangerous. Hijacking web sites by fronting them from another unrelated domain is completely completely unacceptable. The good side of AMP lies in making websites lean, but this can be done without the fronting part.
Whether or not people actually install them is a good question, though.
But I've also implemented AMP pages and as a developer they are a PITA. And as discussed in the OP and related they are definitely an of example Google crowd-sourcing their challenges onto everyone else.
Part of what makes AMP pages faster is that the AMP constraints force you to abandon not just ads but also many other complex HTML5/CSS/JS features. The resulting UX is less sexy and may be lacking in functionality, but there is simply less of it. Getting simple AMP pages from Google's cache _is__ noticeably faster on mobile, as much as I wish it wasn't.
For much the same reasons Google AMP is a thing, I use Apple News for most of my news reading. The web has overcome commercial broadcast television as being the shittiest way of consuming content.
It's the sort of thing that reminds me why I want the web platform to remain competitive with iOS, Facebook, and Android. If not AMP, something like it was sorely needed.
This is what is so insidious about what Google is doing here and seems to me to maybe make a good case that Google abuses its monopoly power.
(INB4: "It's a bad idea to make your business depend on Google traffic because that's fickle and outside of your control." Sure, that's true, but still, organic Google traffic is a pretty rich vein to completely ignore or cede to competitors.)
Publishers hate that google holds them hostage with AMP in this manner, but the situation is what it is, until someone from the Justice Department starts making the lords of Mountain View antsy.
In theory, maybe, but I think history has clearly demonstrated that publishers will not make their pages faster if AMP didn't exist. That's why AMP has been so successful in the first place.
Take a look: https://webperf.xyz
I have a number of issues with AMP but I will just mention two:
1. If Google addressed how their ad system was being mis-used (and in many respects as-intended) that would have gone a long way to addressing webpage performance. Instead they pushed more work on the publisher to adopt yet another new format (add it to Facebook Instant Articles, Apple News JSON formats, Google News MediaRSS etc.)
2. AMP helped killed some early momentum to make pages faster. They sold a bandaid solution that was 'good enough' for management and undercut engineering efforts to address the root cause.
Between their A) political activities (opinion influencing, censorship, etc.), B) business activities (user tracking, ruinous ads, etc.), and C) search quality issues (they have a major conflict of interest between providing good search results and maximizing A and B), I didn’t even have to try to stop using them out of principle; I literally just don’t get any value out of using Google search anymore.
I use DuckDuckGo (starting circa 2013), which provides a fairly similar/mediocre quality search experience, but without all the other aforementioned problems. The truth of the matter is that these search giants ruined search so bad that I don’t even really use search as much anymore. I’ve gotten to the point where I realize that I can no longer rely on finding things easily. This is not a problem of “the Internet has just gotten too big”. This is a problem created by Google, which has now set a low benchmark.
1. On desktop, I clicked through a link on Facebook, leading to an AMP page
2. The page was clearly meant for mobile, and looked bad on desktop; the images were full-screen size, the font was too big, and the text line length went all the way to the edges of my very wide browser window.
3. I used Ctrl+Minus to adjust the zoom, which fixed the font size but not the images or the line length.
4. I looked at the top and bottom of the page for a "desktop site" link, and couldn't find one.
5. I looked at the address bar, and saw that the URL was an AMP URL. This is the first time I have noticed that I am using AMP in more than a month.
6. I closed the tab and went to HN, where this was the top article.
When AMP works well, it's inconspicuous, so it's not so surprising that most of my remembered experiences with it are negative. Still, I think google needs to invest a bit more in preventing this sort of bad experience, because currently it comes across as "google breaking the web".
The AMP viewer iframe share button (and share intents) all share this canonical URL, not the AMP url. Google's implementation is trying it's best to get you to that version as well when sharing links.
Link Rel Canonical is an old (2012) standard: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6596
Not saying it _shouldn't_ have gotten Microsoft into that much trouble, just that it did not.
Imagine the position Google would be in today if both Chrome and Android were controlled by Microsoft.
https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/security/sandboxed-i...
Even reputable web pages tend to have a metric TON of non-sandboxed javascript from third parties. If you care about your security this is a risk.
If you stick with AMP - this is - by spec - prohibited.
Something to think about as you browse the web gobbling down javascript and all the other third party javascript being pumped at you.
There are about 200 in that list and any network can submit a config to be added, it's just a pull request away.
AMP is the wrong way to address this. Using a good browser is the right way.
Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index?
This seems like the underlying goal behind AMP and Chrome's Lighthouse (site audit tool) any way.
This would make a lot of sites fast in the next couple months. But maybe Google doesn't really want that?
edit: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-i...
And I would say (considering how Google search looks on mobile in Chrome) that AMP is a far higher effect on rank than page speed.
So what is the motivation to make your page speed faster when you can just have an AMP page and then a super fat page for everything else?
Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd be penalising sites with large amounts of content, that aren't on a CDN. Large images or videos, for example, might be the entire point of the page in the first place. I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images.
They render a <p>Loading</p> so it gets a paint score of 100, then when their behemoth js app finishes loading+parsing it removes this dom element.
I agree with the other comment here replying to you. In the olden days people had to explicitly link to larger content. Isn't that was AMP does anyway?
It’s worth spending some time optimizing your landing page so that it loads fast and renders cleanly on mobile, if you want people to see your content. That doesn’t mean it has to use JS, or AMP.
Why is then basically every single page created by Google is a bloated monstrosity with multi-megabyte Pangs routinely embedded in them and loading megabytes of shitty JS?
Don't use complex but nice images designed for print on the web and not just copypasta god knows what js library.
I don't think images are the problem, megabytes of third-party javascript is.
> I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images.
There are several technologies available for progressively-enhanced images, and Chrome is experimenting with lazy-loading all images[1]. This argument does not exist in practice.
Google already effectively omits most of the independent web anyway. It strongly favors the large commercial websites instead.
Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". How can you better organize the world's information when other companies control it? Nothing better than taking control of that information directly. Now you can organize and reformat it to your own wishes. Nothing evil about that, mind you, but it does make you think about their next steps.
Slow web pages is a big signal (out of many) in SEO.
Most page weight seems to come from tracking and ads. Google IS the most popular tracking and ad provider on the web.
If google penalized slow loading very much, they'd be hurting their own revenue and data collection. It's a conflict of interest.
AMP allows these big, ad-driven, heavy-weight sites to still take all the top spots on the web. Meanwhile terrific content is buried because it's failure to implement AMP.
Google's self-interested ranking of sites is shaping the web very negatively - towards more tracking and more ads.
- It breaks viewing the site with javascript disabled.
- It prevents viewing the site offline (e.g. on an airplane) without first scrolling through the whole content while online.
- Unless implemented perfectly it adds delays before content you have scrolled to becomes visible.
Deciding when to load stuff should be the browser's job. Don't reimplement the browser in javascript.
UAs could easily lazy load by default on metred connections.
I'm genuinely surprised by how many apparently considerate websites like Wikipedia seem to completely ignore this consideration. I often don't have a working internet connection. Why shouldn't I be able to read the article I already loaded when on wifi? Why should I pay for mobile data when I tried to load a page on wifi?
Meaningful, content images should be loaded on a phone when using a non-metred connection promptly so that a user need not waste their metred connection just because they want to read an article on a bus - or a subway.
Breaking the website for the five geeks who disable javascript isn't really a valid consideration, in my view, despite the fact that I ran with disabled javascript for a long time.
But your final paragraph is very much true. Mobile UA authors should consider enabling lazy loading on metred connections and disabling it on non-metred connections by default.
Long term users of web browsers can probably remember in the days of 14.4k browsers, many people used the setting to disable loading images by default. A modern version of that setting should be restored.
And there are so many other third-party elements that are detrimental. It's sad that we have to use things like Firefox's tracking protection to remove all this bloat that people insert on webpages just because it's possible to do so today and it wasn't fifteen years ago.
It feels like a Pandora's Box at times. We can complain a lot but nothing is stopping you from adding just one more JS package to your app if you want to, because it's as easy as 'npm install' and you don't see the downsides.
There are alternatives for everything. While you're at it, do the same for Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, if you can. I only have Instagram left.
Also stop using auto-update. Promote a diversity of browsers and browser versions.
Good lucks with that.
I know that can be overridden in Chrome's accessibility settings, but it's a shitty practice that something like AMP shouldn't be promoting.
The excuse I always hear about disabling zoom has to do with the multi-touch delay. I can somewhat see the sense of that for very particular applications, but definitely not for AMP, which as I understand it is meant for mostly static content (I'm only assuming though).
More often than not, what I find is that if I override zoom disable and then browser zoom on a site that doesn't allow it usually, it ends up breaking the layout as you zoom. This makes me wonder if they're just disabling zoom because they can't be bothered fixing their CSS to deal with it.
There's one issue I noticed when clicking the links to page sections (#anchors). Those lazy-loaded images make the page scroll away from the section title I jumped to. Is it possible to fix that by having images replaced by placeholders of the same size?
https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/community/...
It seems to be abandoned, but still works for most sites.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.d...
Somewhere along the line, things came full circle. HTML was slow again, so we needed a new new way to efficiently render content, thus AMP was born.
The Facebook instant links (or whatever they're called) have much the same effect on me. I'll usually open those if the headline even makes me a little curious.
What am I missing here? I installed FireFox, set Enhanced Tracking Protection changed to "strict", and went to typical sites that track you (news sites). I still see third-party hits in the Developer Tools (e.g. facebook) and it says it blocked 0 trackers so far.
The big G makes money off our non-tech associates, not us, so moving them is, IMO, more important than me and tech-folk moving.
"Evil" is not a word I'd use. I think AMP is bad for numerous reasons, most of which are detailed in other comments. But the reason that is most relevant to your comment is that AMP makes the web experience worse for me.
> Someone else will create another amp alternative
Yes, I fear that this will happen.
nobody showed an interest in making mobile websites fast even though they ve been slow for years. The whole javascript corporate ecosystem is still openly pushing heavy javascript apps even though sites are mobile-first today. only google cared
> Google Chome makes SXG indistinguishable from regular HTTPS, which breaks basic assumptions around how users understand the green padlock in location bar (aka "nobody but me and the Origin server can see the payload"). UX of regular HTTPS is reused as-is, pretending that end-to-end HTTPS transport was used with Origin from location bar, which is not true.
https://blog.intelx.io/2019/04/15/a-new-type-of-http-client-...
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ha00dSGKmjoEh2mRiG8FIA5s...
> Big changes need strong justification and support. This particular change is bigger than most and presents a number of challenges. The increased exposure to security problems and the unknown effects of this on power dynamics is significant enough that we have to regard this as harmful until more information is available.
If websites use the Comcast AMP framework, Comcast will cache their sites and make them faster for users. See, it's about the users! Because the Comcast AMP framework is open, and has nothing to do with the business interests of Comcast. Comcast will give a bit to open source and have a few conferences per year to make sure developers know that it's not all about the company.
I believe the fight against AMP will not be won by users or individual action -- it will be won with legislation. What are users going to do? Plain HTML pages are on the 10,000th page, below a hundred thousand AMP tracker loaded piles of shit. It is a de-facto content restriction.
Even if I use an alternate search engine -- it's results are polluted by those of Google, because 90% of search is Google. We do not have a choice.
I'm sure a Google lawyer will successfully argue that I can recieve IP addresses in the mail via U.S. post for any odd, esoteric plain text HTML pages I'd like to visit, though.
They probably do it with Netflix, some ISP do it with Steam too... there's nothing wrong with multilevel cache (except cache invalidation).
They do it with Netflix/Steam because they have to, because if they did not those services would choke bandwidth for everyone. With your Netflix example, there are maybe a dozen players with this type of arrangement -- it is the exception to the rule and has more to do with physical limitations of the network than political control. With AMP/non-amp websites, there are hundreds of millions of separate players, and no physical need to discriminate (my neighbor's network performance is identical whether I look at 2mb websites vs. 300kb websites)
I believe there is a fundamental difference between the two -- google's play is about control, not physical limitations.
Control of what? The search result are from Google, they already have control over them. The existence of AMP doesn't make you go to Google (except if AMP is actually superior, but then any search provider can provide it too, just like Cloudflare does it now).
This is easier said than done, as the other search engines are still not as good as Google, even though Google's results have been getting worse. This may be a controversial opinion, but it's not what my comment is about. I'm going to make a more scandalous suggestion.
Don't use search engines at all.
The idea that a centralized one-size-fits-all search engine is necessary is preposterous. The Web makes available all kinds of information, and unifying it all under a single data model is difficult, and doesn't even make sense. (Does anyone remember the semantic web?) Unifying the world's information behind a single search facade is likewise a Very Difficult Task (TM), one that's likely to fall into the trap of big business, as search has done, because the required resources are so huge.
But what if it's solving the wrong problem? Information of a particular type tends to gravitate to local centers of storage, so to speak, which are specific to the type of information being stored. For example:
- Encyclopedic knowledge is in Wikipedia.
- You can find places by searching Foursquare, Yelp, Apple Maps, OSM, ...
- Q&A about programming (and lots of other topics) is on StackExchange.
- News aggregators have been beaten to death, and multiple are available.
- You can search Twitter using Twitter, and Facebook using Facebook.
I can go on, but the point is clear: every single Web-connected system offers a search function of its own, one that's likely specialized to the type of information stored in that system. It'll most certainly do a better job at searching that local store, and will do so more quickly and cheaply than a centralized, generic search engine. This also avoids the moral hazard of search centralization.
This leaves the little guy: the random small website or blog, where the majority of true gems are found. Google locates these by sheer brute force: they literally index the entire web. They've taken a relative eternity to do so, but it's a problem that could have been solved by something better than mere force.
Does anyone remember webrings? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring What if "the little guys" organized in webrings and directories? This doesn't seem like a technical problem, as a webring or directory is trivial to build. Could this be a UX problem that hasn't been solved to the satisfaction of a modern Web user? Is anyone or anything taking another stab at this?
In closing, I'll throw out one last vague notion: that of an openly federated search. How cool would that be? We don't need Google for that at all.
It uses Google search, but privacy on level of DuckDuckGo.
Are you sure it's still a valid choice (genuine question)? Most of the research around search engines seems polarised, so I'm not sure which sources to trust, even DDG is considered a data mining tool but some.
This is new news to me.
If you're purely a consumer, I don't see how your equipment has anything to do with search at all. Searching using one system isn't more expensive than using another.
I do primarily use bangs from Firefox's address/search uni-bar, so if they added bang support from there, I would start using that feature without changing my habits at all.
And what about if I want to search for a band, and I don't know if they have a website, a facebook page, a soundcloud page or if they have most of their material on youtube. Do I manually need to search and check and compare different platforms until I find the one where the band chose to host their content?
What does Google gain with AMP? How does it make money with it?
This is why they built Chrome and Android too.
> Treat the cause: Third-party requests slow down the web
> ...
> - Google owns 7 of the top 10 most popular third-party calls
> ...
> So you can see why there must be some kind of internal struggle at Google. They understand the value of a faster web but they also cannot go after the main cause of the slow web. And this is how technology such as AMP gets invented and makes things worse.
It blows my mind how many devs around here are devoted to their browser and search.
Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. FF dev tools are awesome. FF, like Wu Tang, is for the kids.
STOP USING google SEARCH! USE DUCKDUCKGO! Use the `!gm` google maps bang when you need it. Use the `!g` google bang in a pinch, but for all of our sake, please wean yourself off of google search.
These two steps are immensely easy to do, and yet a MAJOR investment in all of our future.
FF is great, but it's also worth pointing out that Edge has all the Google adware removed and better privacy. There was a post from Eric Lawrence detailing all the Google stuff they removed a little while back, it was about 25 separate components. There's telemetry though so make your own mind if you're cool with that.
I'm genuinely curious why you chose this route.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-first-chrom...
Sure, when's convenient?
https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/
> or Linux
We'll chat again in a few weeks when that's released.
Google is an advertising company.
I think plenty of people have found Mozilla to have made some poor decisions over the years. It feels as though you have to choose between two options that aren't great, so is there a point in switching? Take the add ons situation. At least on Chrome I can run my own add ons.
To be fair to Google, I think it is important to acknowledge the good things Chrome did in the beginning. I remember when it came out, and most (non - Mac users) were still using IE, it was fantastic! I remember jumping on board immediately. But for me at this point, it has become too much to bear.
At this point they are making so much money from tracking users and selling to advertisers.. who could blame them for continuing to do so? I sure can't, haha.
But after a while, I started realizing all the intrusive & creepy advertisements I was seeing were simply a result of the browser software I chose, and the website I chose do do my searches on, so I started looking for alternatives.
And Google hasn't?
This is not and has never been true. What is no longer possible is the ability to sideload extensions outside of the browser by copying files into a directory because that's how dirtbags have stuck extensions that could not be uninstalled into Firefox as part of a third-party app install.
Go to `about:addons`, install add-on from file, you're done.
Then I downloaded a working add-on. It worked fine when installing from file. I removed the signing information. It installs fine as a temporary add-on, but throws the same error as the hello world.
I'm pretty sure that the add-ons need to be signed by Mozilla to install from file.
https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/publish/signing-...
You can then sideload unsigned add-ons by following these instructions:
https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/publish/distribu...
Google/Chrome/<all other services> simply do not have your interests first, so it's a choice between Google and <everyone else (who by default track you less)>.
They claim to be doing this for speed purposes, but it'll actually slow down the vast majority of Chrome profiles running ad blockers.
Candidate A: Multiple accusations of bribery, frequently posts racist/sexist/Anti-Semitic/Islamophobic memes on his Twitter account, and sponsored multiple pieces of reprehensible legislation during his tenure in office.
Candidate B: Refuses to tip more than 10%, ever.
One seems objectively worse than the other, and yet the average voter gets to say, "Oh, well since they're both bad in some way, I can vote for Candidate A with a clear conscience because I like his views on X."
The idea that American's issues with the Democratic canidates can be compared as "Refused to tip more on 10%", is moronic.
It is more like
Candidate A: Multiple accusations of bribery, frequently posts racist/sexist/Anti-Semitic/Islamophobic memes on his Twitter account, and sponsored multiple pieces of reprehensible legislation during his tenure in office.
Candidate B: Wants to Steal my money and give it to other people, wants to force me in to government contolled substandard health care, wants to take my core freedoms (speech, guns, and propery rights), and was to trash the economy so finding a job is hard
Candidate A: Openly racist and homophobic. Annoyingly pious. Secretly gay. Claimed to no longer have any association with the Klan after the investigative journalist published that one article. Inherited money; pretends to be a farmer/rancher. Leaves teaser religious tracts that look like money in lieu of tips.
Candidate B: Policy proposals completely divorced from reality. No primary-sponsored legislation has ever passed. Secretly a roofie-rapist. Does insider trading on privileged information. Incumbent in the safest district in the state. Habitual drunk driver, though never convicted.
That's just what you get (eventually) with winner-take-all, first-past-the-post elections. Even in states where the minority party essentially never wins, the party leadership can still be corrupt as Hell, and no decent person can hold their breath long enough to avoid the stench of it.
Candidate A: A career criminal who has devoted his time in office to mass corruption, stealing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for personal benefit. Not satisfied with creating the most corrupt administration in history, Candidate A began extorting foreign countries to make contributions to him personally, in the form of bribes to assist his campaign or else. When not stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and extorting allies to the benefit of our enemies, he is known for partying with notorious pedophiles like Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrews, and has over 40 credible accounts of sexual abuse or rape.
Candidate B: Believes that taxation, not monetizing debt, is the proper way to budget. Understands that the broken, bankrupting and failing healthcare system needs evidence-based reform to cost less and do more, like in dozens of other nations worldwide. Finally, Candidate B is the only Candidate at all that understands the importance of the Constitution, Rule of Law, and the freedoms of the Bill of Rights, and doesn't require special interests donations to "manage" his views on the subject. And finally, as with every politician from Candidate B's party for two generations straight, they understand how to steward an economy towards great heights not fueled by a wealthy minority getting wealthier, but by the working class getting the money and wealth they deserve.
If you're going to support a lawless, hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars stealing, Constitution-destroying, child rapist, then have the guts to call a spade a spade.
>>Candidate A: ...
I am sure you have evidence based proof of all of this correct?
>>>Candidate B:
Don't make me laugh, Candidate B is just as corrupt, and has no concept of Freedoms. Candidate B believes the Constitution grants rights, instead of limiting government, they believe there are no limits at all to government Candidate B's party is also the source of a good chunk of the National Debt given they are the ones that create the Entitlement programs that are driving this nation to bankruptcy
All cable news is terrible, but obviously you disagree as your opinions have been written for you by Fox News opinion hosts ("Fake News"). Literally, you have expressed 0 opinions that were not written for you by Hannity or Tucker.
>I am sure you have evidence based proof of all of this correct?
Of course, if you actually followed the multiple court cases exposing this corruption, you would see the court filings demonstrating the facts of his legendary multi-hundred-million emoluments violations, enriching himself by ordering our government to spend taxpayer money at his private businesses solely for his own benefit. Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm!
https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/trump-and-forei...
Regarding Donald Trump raping children with Jeffrey Epstein, one of his victims gave a sworn affidavit to that effect.
http://thememoryhole2.org/blog/doe-v-trump
Regarding Donald Trumps extortion of our allies to help himself personally and our enemies, he admitted it publically, but https://intelligence.house.gov/report/ details his crimes along with https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
The corruption of Trump is at all levels, from ordering the military to drive 100 miles out of their way to spend double the market rate at his personal facilities (rank, impeachable corruption) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/us/politics/military-stop... to giving 400 million dollar sweetheart contracts to allies and donors rated "unfit" to handle the contract by our own military https://www.axios.com/trump-border-wall-fisher-industries-in...
The sad part is, all of this evidence is public and being blasted from the rooftops
Your statements here are a complete and total indictment of your fake news propaganda bubble, that you know none of them and have seen none of this evidence.
>Don't make me laugh, Candidate B is just as corrupt
This is called false equivalence. No politician in American history has been a fraction of corrupt as Donald Trump. Sorry if facts are triggering.
>Candidate B believes the Constitution grants rights, instead of limiting government,
This is hilarious nonsense. Not only is it false, but it's the kind of civically-illiterate nonsense that gets repeated on the right among folks who don't know better. The Constitution doesn't "limit" government when it creates a sovereign Congress which can pass any law including updating the Constitution. You're confusing the dual duties between the Constitution (defining government power) and Bill of Rights (limiting it).
>" they believe there are no limits at all to government"
Wrong! It's the GOP which is arguing for the "Unitary Executive" the King President who has no limits, who can "murder someone and get away with it". Wake up my man! Donald Trump views himself your King, not your President, and has waged a war against limited government and limited power unlike any war in our history! As Donald Trump ignores separation of powers, destroys the separation of powers, he has transformed the Presidency into a Dictatorship or Monarchy. The only party which believes there are "no limits at all" are currently trying to get away with crime based on the theory that the President is King!
Literally the GOP defense for Donald Trump's corruption and crimes isn't "he didn't do it" it's the famous Nixonian reply "When you're the President, it's not illegal". They literally spin his impeachable crime as being "OK" because when you're a Republican, you're allowed to be corrupt, to steal, to rape, as long as you remain loyal.
Stop fighting against limited government and start supporting our Constitution before it's too late!
> is also the source of a good chunk of the National Debt given they are the ones that create the Entitlement programs that are driving this nation to bankruptcy
Fact: The only President in the modern era to return a surplus to the treasury was a liberal. Reagan QUADRUPLED the debt. Bush left us with a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, while Obama lowered it by 70% to $400B!
Your narrative is totally devoid of all facts. Every liberal President for the past 40 years has lowered spending by balancing the budgets, while every Republican has gone on a debt-financed spending spree.
I hope one day you can break away from your rancid, fact-less, evidence propaganda and learn how these little lies you are used to telling your buddies don't hold up to even ten seconds of fact gathering.
Literally, every statement you've made has been false, and you've not even attempted to provide any evidence to support it.
I see you confuse Accusation with evidence, a " sworn affidavit" is not evidence, it an an accusation of which our legal system demands we assume innocence until guilt is proven with actual evidence. Which is why those cases went no where because there is no evidence to support the accusations
>>>court filings demonstrating the facts of his legendary multi-hundred-million emoluments violations, enriching himself by ordering our government to spend taxpayer money at his private businesses solely for his own benefit.
This is where you may have a case, but do date no one has provided evidence of actual enrichment, given Trump claims to be hosting the events at cost, and often times it has been proven that comparable venues for events would be considerably higher in costs
Though it is not good from an optics stand point
>>>The corruption of Trump is at all levels, from ordering the military to drive 100 miles out of their way to spend double the market rate at his personal facilities
The story links does not claim double the costs, in fact is claims it was less than a comparable hotel, nor does it say Trump ordered the military to go there but rather the military personnel chose that on their own
Might want to read your own sources next time
>>>This is hilarious nonsense. Not only is it false,
Not it is not false at all, the entire purpose of the document was We the People were granted a limited number of powers to the government, that is why there are enumerated powers
>>>The Constitution doesn't "limit" government when it creates a sovereign Congress which can pass any law including updating the Constitution.
Congress has ZERO authority to update the Constitution, their authority only allows the Congress to submit to the States and the People Amendments to the Constitution. They have no power to amend it on their own. Zero, none, zilch
Congress is also not the only way to amend the constitution as the People, and the States have the ultimate power over the congress.
In your Federalist system the Congress is not, and should not be the most powerful branch. The States acting as a collective are, and should be.
>>>you're confusing the dual duties between the Constitution (defining government power) and Bill of Rights (limiting it).
No I am not, Article I Section 8 lays out the only powers granted to the government, James Madison predicted people would mis understand the Bill Of rights exactly as you have, stating
"I go further and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. "
The constitution defines a limited form a government and limited powers in scope. The Bill Of Rights simply codifies a few of the most important rights, while it does limit government, the constitution it self is also a limiting document
>>>Wake up my man! Donald Trump views himself your King, not your President
You have confused me for a Trump Supporter, I am libertarian. In 2016 I voted for Gary Johnson.
However I will say Trump was the lesser of 2 evils over Hillary Clinton (talk about corrupt), and based on the Front runners for 2020 for the Dems he will also be the lesser of 2 evils as there is no way Biden, Sanders or Warren will win.
>>>Fact: The only President in the modern era to return a surplus to the treasury was a liberal. Reagan QUADRUPLED the debt. Bush left us with a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, while Obama lowered it by 70% to $400B!
Not fact.. Obama did not lower the National Debt at all, in Sept 2009 (9 mos after talking office) the National Debt was 11.9 Trillion, in Sept 2016 (3mos before he left office) the National Debt was 21.5 Trillion, so he added 7.7 Trillion in 8 years or about 960 Million per year in deficits
For Bush in Sept 2001 the National Debt was 5.8 Trillion, in sept 2008 the national debt was 10.02 Trillion, adding 4.4 Trillion or about 550 Million per year even adjusting for Inflation that is about 700 billion in 2016 Dollars, Thus Obama added considerably more money annually to the national debt that Bush did.
Since 1941 5 Presidents droped the Debt as a Ratio of GDP, and 1 lowered the Debt in real dollars.
Of those Presidencies, 3 were Democrats, and 2 were Republicans.
However Given that the Far left now believes Obama is a Conservative, I have a feeling they do not believe Bill Clinton, Truman, or Johnson to be "Liberal" enough for their wokeness
you find me a Roosevelt/Truman Democrat and maybe I would get behind the Democratic party again, Biden, Warren, and Sanders are not Roosevelt/Truman Democrats
It's riddled with mistakes (confusing deficit for debt) and downright nonsense (excusing the worst corruption in American history, hundreds of millions of dollars worth, while robotically repeating low-iq conservative propaganda about the orders of magnitude less corrupt Clintons) and finally, it demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of how Donald Trump has betrayed America by working with our enemies, extorting our allies, destroying the bonds of the west, and working in service to hostile interests.
I especially like you how refuse to look at deficits and instead look at debts, so you can award Obama the brunt of Mr Bush's $1.4 trillion dollar deficits. It's a really unintellectual move that defies the reality of the data but it works wonders on a specific type of biased person. Obama took a $1.4 trillion dollar GOP deficit and reduced it to $400B.
You understand that when you reduce the deficit, you are balancing the budget right? That President Obama balanced 70% of the budget after Bush's spending spree? And that Trump, the so called Conservative, immediately busted the deficit wide open back over a trillion during a boom year mainly to reward major corporations with legendary tax breaks? The economics here are stupid simple and you're breaking your back bending over backwards to deny the truth that every liberal in modern era has worked to balance the budget, and every conservative has gone on a debt-financed spending spree increasing deficits.
The way you reject the sources I gave you, the same sources which will grace American history textbooks for centuries to come, is breathtaking. It's always impressive how fast real sources and real evidence can get dismissed by someone parroting conspiracy theories and propaganda.
And for what purpose? Why reject hard sourcing while providing none if not to defend the most corrupt Constitution-shredding president in American history?
Call yourself a libertarian if it makes you feel better, but you don't support America.
Quote Madison if it makes you feel smart, but you'll have to skip over the Federalist Papers that speak at length about foreign influence in our elections as you reward Trump by repeating his lies and justifying his crimes.
"You find me a Roosevelt/Truman Democrat and maybe I would get behind the Democratic party again, Biden, Warren, and Sanders are not Roosevelt/Truman Democrats"
We both know you're going to do whatever it takes to help the most corrupt president in history, one who is violating the very bonds that hold this nation together, get re-elected.
It is what it is, but patriots stand up for our constitution, stand up for the sanctity of our elections, stand up for the rule of law, stand up for the office of the presidency and separation of powers. In contrast, libertarians parrot pitiful fake news Fox News talking points about "muh guns" and "corrupt Clintons" while fancying themselves some how above the average Trump supporter.
Find me a Republican or Libertarian who doesn't bow before Emperor Trump and his war against American democracy, who doesn't excuse the worst corruption in American history, who believes that the Rule of Law matters, and I'll be able to label you a liar.
The two-party system is a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.
The real problem is the first-past-the-post voting system. A FTFP voting system will always devolve into a two-party system. If we switched to some sort of ranked choice or approval voting, we'd see more options.
It kills me that someone would be pissed at Mozilla for adding pocket, Chrome comes with so many damn Google centric plugins, and one little useful utility you can remove is what makes you lose it over Firefox? Come on.
That was quite a while ago, but that kind of thing does stick with you.
How come this is brought up in the argument at all? Mozilla is very imperfect, but they're the only major browser vendor that doesn't have their own ad networks. Safari and Firefox are the only two options that 1) are not owned by a company working against browser user's interests or 2) inadvertently end up helping the dominance of a browser in category 1. And most people can't use Safari.
Mozilla has actively shown time and time again that they're there for the end user. You can be critical of the times when they made mistakes in that mission (plenty of times), but please realize who your real friends are.
I made this move myself many months ago & never looked back. There is basically nothing I miss about dropping chrome/ google search. My web experience is indiscernible using Firefox & DDG.
One of the only minor things I've had to adjust to is prefixing searches with my local city & state when I'm searching for things in my hometown (Imagine that! My search engine website isn't tracking my physical location!). A small price to pay for a HUGE gain in privacy & peace of mind, knowing I'm no longer being exploited and rolled up into a package, sold to advertisers.
I got so sick of seeing targeted ads in EVERY website I visit. Something I searched the day before. Maybe a website I visited a few days ago. Then I have to look at ads for those things for the next week straight!? No thanks.
After making two super easy changes, Chrome -> Firefox & Google search -> DDG, I almost NEVER see creepy, annoying targeted ads anymore. It's amazing!
The trade-off, like you said, is well worth it.
(Upon typing this, I realize I'm just echoing your comment. Either way, leaving this up to provide one more voice in support.)
In short, if you last tried DDG a long time ago try again, it is much better.
I used to be one of those people who when I couldn't find something on the duck would repeat the search with Google. But more and more, especially in the last six months, if I can't find it on Duck, it's not on Google, either.
Duck gives me irrelevant results to those queries. Google gives me irrelevant pop-culture results to those queries.
Very much true. Even moreso as of the last 6 months DDG has been even better for some things, especially if they are political in any way. You'll find some crap sites on DDG but you'll also find what you're looking for. Sometimes I want to find crap sites or non-mainstream stuff, and only DDG surfaces that. I do fear a bit tho once DDG gains more popularity, the SEO games may not be kind to DDG.
I tried DDG when it first came out and found it unacceptable. Currently though, it's totally usable and sometimes better than Google.
Google may have gotten worse, duckduckgo may have gotten better (I use DDG for most searches, so not sure) but the case for duckduckgo doesn't involve them having a great search team, since they don't have their own index.
The whole web is organized and optimized more and more for clicks and watch time. It would only make sense that the results seem to be correspondingly worse.
There's a lot else on the web, it just isn't surfaced by Google as much as in the search engine's early years.
PS: oh, and in a certain way skewed search results even help Google, it increases ranking mysticism. When one site is consistently high, their competitors cannot know wether that is because of artful SEO or because heavy ad-spending is invisibly tipping the scales. So they will fearfully carry their own advertising budget to the altar of search ranking instead of running ads on a competing network like Facebook. Who knows wether The Algorithm considers ad-spend or not, better not provoke an angry god!
One thing that I keep in mind is that Bing is not blocking DDG searches like google would, I find this commendable and, morally, a point in their favor.
I'm pretty sure DuckDuckGo has a contract with Bing.
This, but more so. Starting a couple of years ago, Google search quality has fallen enough, combined with DDG's search quality rising enough, that I generally get better results from DDG than Google now.
I sometimes end up browsing fora with poor search tools, and that is commonly when I use a search engine (that or if I'm fact checking stuff, but that's a different usecase). Duck Duck Go always ended up failing to get the results whereas Google managed to get the correct results.
I also have had similar negative experiences with DDG for searching stackoverflow. Google isn't ideal, but at least they do always end up getting me what I'm looking for. With DDG I oftentimes get completely unrelated results which just happen to match the keywords I was using.
Finally the image search would always invariably return porn on DuckDuckGo instead of things relating to the query I was looking for.
Could you say if the number of ads you've clicked changed (went up or down) when not seeing targeted ads compared to when seeing targeted ads?
However, the value of actual ad-blocking and increased privacy far outweigh the minor frustration of this UI issue.
It absolutely does, and it drives me up the wall some times. In fact, try visiting this site on Firefox Android and try upvoting something. It's nearly impossible.
Also make sure to check "settings => accessibilty => always enable zoom"
it is doing great now, but lost a great deal of marketshare precisely because it was a slow, bloated mess
> FF dev tools are awesome.
debatable. chrome hot code replace in debug is a great asset. mounting a local workspace to synchronize changes is situational, but when you can leverage it it's great. firefox code view's "find in files" only search linked javascript, chrome search everywhere so it can catches references in inlined javascript
I work with both regularly, for personal usage I prefer firefox, for the obvious implications, but I find a lot less friction in developing using chrome.
FF Quantum hit the stage two years ago. Performance is now a moot point; they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding.
And they've been releasing dope features for the dev tools with almost every release. Check out this especially feature-rich release: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/firefox-71-a-year-end-arri...
yeah, I even said it
>> it is doing great now
> they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding.
don't let fact get in the way of a feel good opinion, I guess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...
Though I really doubt Firefox's drop in market-share is that tied to performance. The story is more likely to be Chrome/Chromium as the default on Android, the release of Chromebooks, etc. Of course, this is just me interpreting facts with my feel good opinion.
Back to the main point at hand, though, Firefox is obviously not doing well today either according to that chart. But its performance and dev tools are top-notch.
historically speaking, Chrome got the share it got because Firefox was a memory hog and was running a purely interpreted JavaScript engine on top of a single threaded rendering engine in a time where core numbers and web app were becoming mainstream.
I must admit that I've never used those missing dev tools in Chrome, as those issues are non-existent in a webpack environment (that's essentially what workspace mounting and hot code reloading is mirroring). And the search function works with all files, including inline code, as of Quantum as well.
I use DDG and "bang" myself to better results if DDG fails me. Love the amount of features.
My only complaint is it sucks at helping me spell words, especially in other languages than English.
Sadly we use Google mail at my work so probably can't avoid it completely.
But, to be fair: At least they don't exclude their resources from Lighthouse.
* ADs are acceptable to me. I just don't want creepy ads that follow me around. And data about my browsing behavior being traded in Ad networks.
* Personalize Search Results drive society appart, and lead to radicalization. Not a fan.
I would modify this to unobtrusive ads.
Ads with audio (video without audio doesn't bother me that much unless I'm on mobile, in which case it's eating up my mobile data), ads that pop into the middle of the screen, ads that run any JavaScript, etc., are unacceptable. But a simple banner on the side, even if it's an animated GIF? I'm alright with.
Unfortunately, ad networks decided that their ads are more important than the content I'm trying to view and have brought ad blockers upon themselves. And don't get me started on malvertising...
I was going to switch to duckduckgo as you say, to realize that OH! I had switched to duckduckgo when switching to FF but had forgotten... that's... how easy and seamless it is now, I even just forgot I was not searching on google anymore.
I want to stop using Google, but please realize that DuckDuckGo is only competitive with Google if English is your only language (maybe even only if you're American?). There are loads and loads of people on HN for whom DDG is a poor experience.
In my experience DDG is extremely poor for localized results, especially those in other languages than English. Previously I recommended StartPage.com for my fellow Europeans, but StartPage has been bought by a shady company [1] and should not be used anymore either. I have no recommendation anymore.
[1]: https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/
I have no recommendation anymore
____
Maybe searx.me is an option. Although, you’re out of luck for Safari on iOS.
Works fine in UK English too, although the "r:uk" modifier is often needed.
And read this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
It is just too late for fashion, no time for fanboyism, we blew it. We are on limit of destroying freedom of internet (I will post facebook, google and amazon ASN based ip ranges later when I come home, so you can try it on your own, it is really hilarious, from all search engines I know, only yandex was still operational. And those are RIPE records.).
I do not use Chrome, but I don't think Firefox is awesome. While I use FF, partly for moral reasons, my experience is average and I saw many flaws and bugs. I prefer the features of Vivaldi, which is based on Chromium, but does not phone home to Google.
> STOP USING google SEARCH!
While my default search engine is Duck Duck Go, I don't recommend it to friends and relatives. My experience is that searching in any language but English gives very poor results. Other patterns also need to be redirected to another search engine, so it's not a a smooth migration.
My estimates are that 50% of my searches are for DDG, 25% for Google, and 25% for others (Bing, Qwant), not counting specialized searches like Wikipedia. That is enough to prevent being profiled.
Can you tell us about (or link us to) some of the many bugs you found in Firefox?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210727 - 4 years old
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1010527 - 6 years old
Not to mention the weird random full-blown crashes that occur when I try to use it that I can't reproduce, no point in opening an issue for those.
The only explanation is that they don't give a crap. Very frustrating.
Reading the bug thread cited above, it may even be a case of, "I was able to get Chrome to crash under similar circumstances, therefore it is conforming behavior. WONTFIX."
What platform are you using? I have used FF exclusively for 10+ years on Linux. Ubuntu and OpenSUSE every day. Nouveau and i915 every day. If I said I get 3 crashes per year in the last 3-5 years that would probably be exaggerating.
The only time FF 'crashes' is when I update while it's running, and even then it gracefully degrades and lets me know I have to restart it. With the 'restore previous session' menu option (an option that only exists in piecemeal and implemented much worse in Chrome), this is a mild inconvenience.
Chromium crashes much more frequently for me on Linux.
1. When switching tabs (ctrl + tab), instead of simply moving there, it showed a menu. This means I need to use that tiny menu to decipher which tab I’m on, instead of the entire background.
2. When closing a full screen video playback using ctrl + w, it takes a few seconds of a black screen on Firefox vs instantaneous on chrome
3. When installing extensions, they don’t always have an icon on the top bar, this makes discovarability a pain
Now this is wonderful in my opinion because it can be configured to cycle in the order in which you visited the tab last. I currently have over 100 tabs open and it helps immensely.
I still use it on principle. But let's not get complacent with regards to performance. That's why Chrome won in the first place.
Same deal with the browser I use. My preferred UI + Chromium is better for me than FF. There are three common cross-platform browser approaches: Chrome, FF, and Chromium-based. Only one of those three offers extreme visual and feature flexibility. I sound like a broken record saying it, but FF should really invest in embeddability so we can take their engine and run.
I can't believe I just called Google the cancer, but would anyone disagree?
For me, easy consumability. I use Chromium Embedded Framework, I don't actually put the hard work into building and maintaining an API myself. I'd love a similar effort for Gecko (there was effort at one time, but nothing of late IIRC).
There are still times DDG completely misinterprets my query and I have to clarify it or resort to !g but these times are becoming less frequent.
I agree on both counts. If newbies ask me what browser they should use, I say Firefox. But I don't use the modern Firefox myself because I simply don't like it.
DDG doesn't have anything like that and forces you to click into a financial website.
I had to switch back. If it added that widget, I'd probably make the switch full time.
The actual queries I entered were not wrapped in quotes. So for some stocks, it's actually there. But no charts.
Along the same lines, the first time I heard a TV commercial for Bing (~10y ago) I had very little idea what it even was but they happily promoted it as a 'decision engine', IIRC.
Firefox has 50% worse performance for me in WebGL applications. Media isn't also accelerated still on Linux. Where is the "awesomeness" in that? I really wish those caveats didn't exist for what I use daily.
For Firefox, I don't see how these things matter in my use case. Admittedly I have no clue if any of the sites I use make use of webgl, but the overall speed and snappiness doesn't feel any different between the two browsers, and I use both on Linux.
The rest of the time I stay away...
Mozilla's continued trend away from Openness and the foundation's original goals and more towards business objectives and corporate "morals" similar to those seen in google seems like we are just replacing one Corporate master for another with Modern Mozilla, inc
Long gone are the days of the Mozilla Foundation standing up for the users against the Corporate goliath Microsoft, today they simply adopt what ever Google wants them to provided Google calls them "standard" .
FF is awesome, but have they fixed the battery issues on Macs yet? It's a non-starter for me to switch.
- https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-d...
Give it a go again!
Are they though? Or is AMP just a storm-in-a-teacup? There a handful of people on Earth that will stop using Google search (in particular) and Chrome as a protest against AMP.
> ... and yet a MAJOR investment in all of our future.
[citation needed]
Personalized search is not inherently bad. Use Google search without being logged in if you really care. Harder to do with Chrome but Chrome is actually a great user experience. It still blows my mind that FF prompts me to restart to install an update when I start it up.
No I don't want to install an update. I want to use the browser. That's why I opened it. How many years has it been since Chrome added auto-update on restart with silent updates?
Beyond Search, GMail, Maps and Chrome though I just won't use another Google service and take the risk that some automated system will decide my account is in violation of some ToS no one has ever read and shut down access to every single Google service I use.
Whoever signed off on doing this through the Google Plus boondoggle needs to be fired (although, to be fair, I think ad accounts getting suspended arbitrarily and in some cases incorrectly was already a thing by then).
AFAIK, the search is still tailored to some degree. Log out and search for "plumber" and I bet you get local results.
So the only issue is how much contextual information you want to give Google when you search for something.
Maybe, maybe not -- but Google's implementation of it is very much not great. It seems to ensure that I won't get the results that I'm looking for.
I ditched Google for DuckDuckGo. Here's why you should too https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-google-alternativ...
That is a tough sell. Users do not really care (nor should they) what publishers want to do to make sites profitable. That space is so fraught with abuse that it's not going to get any sympathy from the user side, anyways.
That is not how it works for me. One of common things I might do is look up a place, like a bar or a restaurant or theater or whatever. When I do this in Google, I immediately get a link to the website, a link to the reviews, pictures of inside and outside and a link to the map. Right at the top of the page. With DDG, all I get is a link to the website if the place has one and possibly a link to a yelp page. I have to do multiple additional searches and then cut and paste the address into a separate tab to open the map to get the same result.
I switched back about a year or so ago. There are some nice things in the FF dev tools compared to Chrome, but on the whole, even a year later I still find myself opening Chrome to do something specific here and there in dev tools.
Not if you’re a macOS user, in particular one that cares for automation. The lack of AppleScript (the bug report that tracks it is old enough to vote) prevents people from considering it as a daily browser. And I’m not just talking about developers. I regularly steer non-technical people away from Firefox because when they ask why my tools—which they want to use—don’t work on Firefox, I have to tell them the truth: I’d like to support Firefox, but I can’t.
I have to use chrome for work cuz of a security rule of questionable legitimacy (to me).
in FF, you bookmark a page by dragging the tab into a folder.
in chrome afaik, you have to star it and then select what folder it goes into.
Ok.
Another thing, In chrome, if you context click inside of a bookmarks folder and create a new folder, it creates a nested new folder within the folder you clicked.
In firefox, thats not the case, wherever you click, i believe it creates the new folder at the top level, and then you can drag it to a sub folder. Its a small problem but if you're like me with lots of bookmarks[1], it is a pain in the ass.
[1] for example, i have a folder for every year, with a subfolder for each month, and whenever i find non-specific cool stuff, i toss the bookmark in this month/year folder. at this point i have these going back to 2016, and its become a cool sort of journal or scrapbook type thing. highly recommend this practice to ppl, and its basically the use-case of many 3rd party browser adons for bookmark management, but built into the browser by default.
anyway, long like firefox!
Most of the end users today never made a conscious choice about this, in the same way most people didn't question Windows as "the operating system" years ago. Google is pre-configured almost everywhere, its brand name is synonymous with web search and most people never even try anything else. IOW, it's not the superior quality of the end product that decides the market share today, it's sufficient quality and no good reason to switch.
Is that the reason, or is it that the results are at the top?