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Comment by pohl | Hacker News Reader

It's the most user-hostile thing Google has yet done, and I'm including things like Google Wave, the death of Google Reader, and things like removing "view image" from image search results. I loathe getting AMP results. It's always a struggle to get to the real site.

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AMP is actually the main reason I switched from Google to DDG on my phone; for some reason, when I switched from an Android phone to an iPhone, I started getting AMP results, and switching search engines was the only way to disable AMP.

Is that why I never get AMP results? I've heard about it a lot, but never gotten an AMP page in the results (obviously, in retrospect, because I use DDG). Too bad it's not a "real" standard that everyone can use.

That's correct, DDG is any alternative browser is one of the better answers to this situation.

User-hostile? I'm a user, and to me it seems more like google protecting me from the hostility of publishers. I love it.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if Google’s AMP viewer didn’t steal 3/4” of my browser’s vertical real estate for utterly useless gray chrome.

I wouldn't mind if I had an opt out, I don't even want it to be opt in. just let me turn it off.

> removing "view image" from image search results

This was the result of a lawsuit by Getty Images - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...

I thought google were forced to remove 'view-image' from search results? (to appease the site owners)

> including things like Google Wave

awkward for me. i really liked Wave.

Why do you think Google Wave was user-hostile?

It was meant to replace email, an open standard sporting many interoperable servers and clients, with something that Google controlled, even though it was theoretically federated.

After Wave failed, they doubled down on making Gmail into more of a nonstandard product with reduced interoperability (now requiring Gmail API instead of standard IMAP) and increasingly, embrace & extend functionality such as email expiration dates.

It wasn't theoretically federated. It was actually federated. Interop outside Google actually happened.

Is something not working with gmail's imap support?

Google Talk was also federated for some time. Good old times when we could dream of continents, but it has all drifted away and become islands.

Issues with Gmail IMAP as voiced by other people:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16951363

https://www.dvratil.cz/2014/06/improved-gmail-integration-in...

https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/gmail/9A5oYELFbu8/7iq...

https://github.com/mscdex/node-imap/issues/71

https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/1247...

Sure you can still access Gmail through IMAP, but if it works differently enough that using a standard IMAP client feels cumbersome and unfamiliar, is it really anything else than a vehicle to tell people that they should really just use the "better" Google product directly?

That said, my original wording of "requiring" the Gmail API was poor and I should have phrased it more accurately.

IMAP sucks at not destroying your battery though. That’s why everyone was using the (also proprietary) activesync provided by exchange.

Well, now we have Slack, and Google Wave seems comparably tame.

Another example of user-hostility: I search google for "X using Y" and I get a bunch of results about X where Y is explicitly excluded, i.e. Y with a strikethru and a link saying "actually search for the fucking thing you typed in"... That's a very frustrating UX. I really should give DDG another go.

I think marking all http websites as unsafe is tied for first place in the most user-hostile thing ever contest.

Well http is technically unsafe. How is it user-hostile? You can still browser the page. Just the tiny icon changes near the url.

I suppose context matters. If I'm browsing a local newspaper the need for SSL isn't nearly as strong as for banking.

Also they're moving away from the icon and going to a full "Not Secure" status. Image: https://i.imgtc.com/9DwDQ6r.png

Still, you're only as secure as your weakest link. An attacker could figure out how to break into your banking account using the information they gathered from you checking your newspaper account.

Is "Not Secure" a false label? Plaintext HTTP is literally not secure against either a passive or active MITM.

If a site does not require personal information, it does not need SSL to be "secure". Webcomics I read, blogs, etc, do not need to be "secured", as they are not requesting data. They do not need HTTPS.

MITM attacks can also simply be injecting malicious code onto insecure websites. They don't have to be stealing your credit card info to be harmful.

>it does not need SSL to be "secure".

>do not need to be "secured"

Which is it - is the site secure without SSL, or does the site not need to be secure?

In the former case, I disagree wholeheartedly. In the latter case, you're not blocked from browsing the site - only informed that it is insecure, a factual statement.

If it doesn't need to be secure, why does a "not secure" label in the browser bother you?

Ah, but they sort of do. HTTPS also protects you from your ISP injecting trackers and ads (which is something US ISPs like to do), and also protects you from third parties listening in on what "benign" sites you visit and building a profile about you.

Open for anyone to see is not the same thing as unsafe. That's a false equivalence.

HTTP is unsafe in the same way that getting a newspaper delivered to your yard is unsafe.

Oh no. Casual passersby know from looking that I have a newspaper on my lawn. If someone wants to snoop when I'm not looking, they now know that I read a specific newspaper. Someone could even steal it.

It's unsafe in the sense that if you leave your driver license, credit cards, birth certificate, cash, and car keys all in your yard over night, you won't be surprised if at least one of them is gone in the morning.

HTTP is a paper in your yard. A poster on a phone pole. A business card on a broken, smudgedy plexiglass subway sign. HTTP is public, and there is absolutely value in putting things out there for everyone to read in public.

It’s more like someone could change an article in the paper before giving it to you, possibly tricking you into purchasing something or going somewhere you wouldn’t have otherwise.

It's not really user-hostile at all. It's great for users. We get easy to identify sites that load quickly on mobile. I waste much less time because of AMP.

You could argue it is bad for publishers. But users? Please.

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