Why can't I disable it? Shouldn't there be a browser extension that just rewrites all AMP links to the underlying source (if I understand right, this always exists - the page may be AMPified but it's still served from the publisher rather than from Google).

This isn't a rhetorical question, I'm interested to know whether that would work. As I see it AMP can be just as big a problem just by being there by default on Google properties as by being something you, the consumer, can't turn off.

I tried pihole blacklisting AMP domains from my PiHole. It works in that I can't accidentally click on them, but it won't re-write them and I usually have to strip out the "amp." part myself.

I haven't found a simple way that works on both my mobile and my desktop devices yet but I'd be interested in any recommendations.

There might have been a Firefox extension, but it probably did not make the cut for the new mobile version.

There were, and they sadly did not. Privacy Badger doesn't strip tracking tokens out of the URL anymore for me either.

The concept of AMP makes a lot of sense. It does speed up browsing and prevents sites from being terrible. The prloblem is that the implementation isn't great and it's Google driven. But the concept is sound.

If by 'the concept' you mean 'be faster', then yea. But that's not much of an endorsement of AMP.

I don't know if you remember the mobile news web around 2015 or so.

Content would furiously jump around as the page was overcome by advalanches, videos on autoplay would pop up in all the corners, as you scrolled, the page would often break at paragraphs as even more videos would load, secretly sliding in the content like some infestation. If you tried to highlight text to copy, you'd see interstitial popups of yet again more ads and then discover your clipboard was populated with ad after ad.

Then when you copied the URL, it was full of fingerprints and UID hashes from all these providers so it was hundreds of excess bytes, usually leaking personal information. You'd have to chop it off or just give up and share the extra tracking garbage at the end of the url

And this was essentially all of the local news sites. They were indistinguishable from the click here to download virus typosquatting sites. It was horrific. Often loading an article would lock up and crash the browser, it was totally completely unusable. This was the post-flash web that we all desperately wanted, here ya go!

I really don't like amp, but it has fixed that problem so effectively that you have to remind people in detail that it actually once existed.

Indeed. I'm not saying there were no issues driving AMP. But there are many possible solutions that did not require Google hijacking your urls.

Ok I'll bite, there's a number of other pre-amp sites that basically scraped the content and then displayed it in a nice form for reading. Those did the same solution.

The only way around a centralized solution is a magical "disable garbage" ad block extension in the browser, and those also exist, and are maintained once again, by a centralized group.

Ok so another solution, just stop indexing or boosting the garbage sites forcing them to change, that's what amp does yet again.

I agree that I want some greener pasture alternative from over yonder, but what?

None of the options you mentioned force sites to spend money maintaining a second version of their site, so they're all better than AMP.

I also think you have an exotic definition centralization.

> sites

Sites is plural, so this is not a centralized solution. There are multiple competing options.

> just stop indexing or boosting the garbage sites forcing them to change, that's what amp does yet again.

No it doesn't. AMP is faster, so AMP sites get boosted based on being faster. It's an indirect effect, at least according to Google. Google could have stopped at applying a big penalty to dog slow sites. No lock-in promoting tech required.

There was a huge missed opportunity for Firefox here to do some aggressive garbage removal in these sorts of pages. They'd probably have a much bigger share now if they had

Why mobile news web of 2015? I don’t use amp. Is what you’re saying an issue now too or?

I remember it as totally unmanageable from around 2014-2016 ... Often it'd just crash the browser after about 30 seconds. It was a running gag at the office.

It is not just faster. It also encourages sensible design and cuts down on the most annoying ad practices.

I always say there are two parts in AMP, a very sensible set of guidelines for good design, enforced by code, and Google services. The first ones benefit users, the second benefit Google.

The unfortunate thing is that when I hear complaints, it is more often about the former than the latter. Something about "creative freedom", like the freedom to put up annoying pop-up ads and mess up with the "back" button and scrolling I guess.

As a user, I am very happy with AMP. Now we just need someone to take all the good bits, remove all Google crap, and make websites that are even better. AMP is open source, at least the good bits are.

That’s all and great, but as a user I simply don’t care. It’s like asking users to care about HTTP/2 or HTTP/3. Theoretically it matters, but in practice the only thing I care is that I can actually browse the web on my phone. And AMP for all it’s faults does a damn good job of making an ad infested web browsable on crappy internet connections.

Having it enforced by Google actually makes it easier to get funding by organizations since now administrators can’t simply just tell their devs to ignore standard.

I agree on this perspective but not the facts. AMP on iOS is buggy as hell. Pinch to zoom, Reader Mode, URL bar hiding, rotation are all routinely broken.

My understanding is that amp forces pages to stop doing the things they’ve been doing for years that made their pages bloated and slow to load.

It’s too bad the sites just couldn’t do that on their own and avoid the need for amp.

Exactly. Google could simply have changed their algorithm to penalize that behavior and it would have led to the same outcome.

Instead they created their own monster in response.

A reasonable person might ask why they didn't go the simple route.

But you can still do that without AMP, and probably even easier than with it.