AMP pages now display the original URL in the Chrome address bar, which fundamentally changes the way the web works.

The 2019 AMP Conf conference was announced by Google in Tokyo. She announced a series of changes and new features for her accelerated mobile pages project. The most important announcement was that the AMP pages will now display the original URL in the address bar, which should solve the biggest confusion point of the platform . – but that only makes things worse.

When you tap an AMP link from Google Search, you're not redirected to the optimized page on the site's own server. Instead, you get a cached version stored on Google's own servers (to improve performance), with a bar at the top providing you with the original URL in case you want it.

Left: Normal article; Right: AMP item loaded from Google Search

Google began testing a possible solution last year. It would use a browser feature developed for Chrome called "Web Packaging", which allows sites to post content on behalf of other sites. – while using TLS to ensure that the content has not been modified along the way. Web Packaging was enabled by default in Chrome 73, but Mozilla has not yet decided it would add support for Web Packing to Firefox.

AMP pages are beautiful, but links to AMP pages? Not really …

Until today! Signed exchanges are here: you can now instantly upload AMP to your own domain! ? #AMPConf pic.twitter.com/OSEcKDc3A5

– AMP Project (@AMPhtml) April 17, 2019

The company announced today at AMP Conf that sites can now use Web Packaging with AMP. Now, when users tap on an AMP page from Google Search, it looks like they've been redirected to the appropriate page (with the green lock icon), but the AMP version is actually served by the Google servers. In addition, with the missing information bar, it is unclear how users can actually view the original version of a page.

It is extremely difficult for me to look at this other than a hostile "feature" that basically changes the way the web works. One of the basic principles of the Internet is that a URL tells you exactly where you are, but if you use Chrome, this is no longer the case.

The AMP versions of most pages have limited functionality, so users will now, unknowingly, get stuck on another version of the page to visit, with apparently no way to view the actual page. Want to use the comments section, but the site you are visiting has not added comments to the AMP version? Well, it's bad to be you, I guess.

CloudFlare is currently deploying Real URL URL support, so expect to see some of your favorite sites start using it in the coming weeks. Now, could be a good opportunity to check DuckDuckGo and / or Firefox.