This is a Google AMP page, so it displays pretty strangely on desktop browsers (full-width paragraphs) -- here's the normal URL.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/apple-is-doubling-down-o...
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/apple-is-doubling-down-o...
I flagged the post because it downloads a file of obscure, unstandardized format designed to send tracking information to Google.
It should at least have an [AMP] tag like other "non-HTML file format" posts do.
Edit: I'm sorry if my post comes across as needlessly hostile, any hostility is only directed at the AMP situation. AMP seems very much deliberately designed as an attractive way to get webdesigners to let Google to track more consumers. What the hell is with people excusing the fact that each and every AMP page makes requests to Google servers, as defined by the "standard"?
Also, I don't think every page makes requests to google. All the ones I see go to a CDN (one designed for AMP, sure). So standard caching applies. But again, author's choice - are other CDNs any better?
I don't mean they can't have 3rd party dependencies, but no specific 3rd party should be required, especially if they don't support graceful degradation in the case where the 3rd party is unreachable.
And on the CDN, it's run by Google, just read the whois data:
Registrant Organization: Google Inc.
At least the AMP link limits my exposure to Google hosted static files instead of the usual (according to uBlock on the "normal" link) Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics, Optimizely, CNET, Adobe, Taboola, CBS, Tealium, Soasta, Netseer and ShareThrough.
If it's an AMP page, I can't just block the AMP script because it does not gracefully degrade. It's having a broken page until HyperGoogleTextEngine loads.
that would be HTML.
The fact that it loads from Google's CDN (though it doesn't seem to...maybe the URL was changed?) is a matter of the URL, not the page format.
AMP requires a script loaded from one particular URL and is designed so that it's incompatible with browsers that don't support Javascript, i.e. <img> tags are replaced by <amp-img> and thus images won't work without the AMP script.
It might formally be a subset of HTML but it is one that excludes non-JS-supporting user agents by means of custom tags which are interpreted by "the AMP engine" script.