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When you click a link on your phone with a lightning flash next to it in Google search, you get something in AMP format. AMP stands for "Accelerated Mobile Pages" and you've probably noticed that these pages load very fast and look much simpler than regular web pages. You may have also noticed that the URL at the top of your browser started with "www.google.com/somethingorother" instead of the webpage you thought you were visiting.
Google is trying to solve this problem today by announcing support for what is called "Signed Exchanges". This should mean that when you click on one of these links, your URL will be the original URL, correct for the story. Cloudflare joins Google to support the standard for customers who use its services.
For this to work, every step of the technology chain involved in loading the AMP format must support signed exchanges, including your browser, search engine, and the website that published the link. For now, this means that the URL will only be fixed when a Chrome browser loads a Google search link to a published article that supports support.
Do you have all this? Probably not because it is very complicated, and there is a kajillion of traps and Web standards behind almost every clause in the last three paragraphs. Let's zoom in a bit and talk about what AMP is and what it is trying to become. We can start with what we have been talking about for over four years:
The mobile Web is always afraid.
Many companies have tried to solve the problem. On the one hand, there are ad blockers, various updates not keeping track of browsers, and the advertising industry promises to be more enjoyable. None of these efforts have been successful because it's a game of cat and mouse with people trying to make the Web better and those who make money from crappy pub experiments.
That's why, in contrast, there have been various attempts to displace the Web with something a little more controlled and mobile-centric. That's what Facebook's instant articles are and that's what Apple News is all about. These new standards are also better for phones because they can be bundled, preloaded, and sent from any server.
Google AMP is also part of this category, but Google tries to separate the Web's opening from the safe and controlled nature of these other standards. An AMP article can not contain as much JavaScript content as you find on a webpage, and it can be packed and distributed anywhere.
This brings us to the problem. Since Google is trying to make AMP a Web standard, it must use Web standards, namely the URL. But the URL has always been a kind of promise: what you are looking at comes from where it says. This is called an "address" for a reason. AMP, because it is web-based, does not break this contract, even if the article can be served by someone else. That's why you see a different URL on some AMP articles. Even if a Edge The AMP article certainly comes from us, it could be served by a Google server.
Here are, for example, three different URLs, all for the same story. I've bolded the passages that tell you that you're looking at AMP:
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/9/11/17842556/ipad-logitech-crayon-apple-pencil-stylus-review
https://www.theverge.com/platform / amp/ 2019/4/16/18311894 / logitech-express-alexa-remote-control-advertised-features-pricing
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/4/16/18311894/logitech-express-alexa-remote-control-announce-features-pricing
This is the last problem that poses the real problem, both in terms of page functionality and trust. This is also a big problem when you share a URL. Sometimes your browser can be smart and share the "real". But more often than not, you end up sending the AMP URL, which looks ridiculous on a desktop browser.
That's what this whole signed exchange affair means to repair. All parts of the technology chain are mutually trusting each other and the Google server will get permission to serve you a URL starting with www.theverge.com instead of www.google.com. It breaks somehow the promise of the URL: this indicates www.theverge.com, but the server is that of Google. In theory, this is not a problem, because the publisher will have accepted that we trust Google to do it.
This means that Google must convince publishers to support the standard, which means even more work for companies that are already trying to make their content appear on the Web, Apple News, AMP, and who knows where. (For the record, I do not know if The edge or Vox Media plans to take over signed exchanges.) This is the classic problem of all Web technologies, "chicken or egg," and I expect many publishers to take a similar approach. This is going to be a big hurdle for Google in the future.
All this work fits into a widespread campaign to get AMP absorbed or replaced by something called "Web Packaging Standard", which (basically) allows web pages to be packed and zoomed on Internet in order to be preloaded and served. faster. This is what AMP does, but the new standard should be a little more universal.
Everything with Web standards takes time. There is no annual cadence of a technical leader going on stage at a major event and presenting incredible technology to which you can subscribe. tomorrow. Instead, we discuss e-mail threads, building consensus among stakeholders, and various companies that rely on or make rational decisions to make the effort worthwhile. It's slow, messy and complicated. It is also – at least in theory (Google) – not controlled by a single company or entity.
All that concerns the signed exchanges is only a small step, but it is a small step in the right direction.
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