Brave frontally attacks Google and its protocol of AMP pages, lightened for mobiles. A system which, according to the internet browser editor, has too many drawbacks.
Brave, publisher of the internet browser of the same name, very attached to the respect of privacy, has just presented an amazing new function: De-AMP. It makes it possible to bypass the AMP versions (Accelerated Mobile Pages from Google) to automatically and systematically display the original web pages. “Wherever possible, De-AMP will rewrite links and URLs to prevent users from visiting AMP versions of pages”explains Brave. “In cases where this is not possible, Brave will monitor page search and redirect users to AMP pages before the page is even rendered, preventing AMP/Google code from loading and running”adds the editor.
If Brave goes to great lengths to fight AMP-formatted pages, it’s simply because these are versions that Brave believes are harmful to the web and the user experience. In its explanatory post, Brave points in particular to the fact that AMP brings even more information to Google on browsing habits. Moreover, it makes browsing more confusing and blocks some important features of sites. And this while its main objective, which is to speed up the loading of pages by reducing their weight, is not always achieved. Indeed, tests would show AMP pages slower to load than their classic versions. Finally, all these problems could be amplified with AMP 2.0, a new version of the system in preparation.
AMP, an outdated framework?
This new front-end AMP attack comes at a time when more and more websites are opting out of the protocol, finding it more harm than good, despite the commonly held view that AMP pages gain a valuable advantage in the Google search results ranking. From its inception, this system has continued to attract criticism from those who saw a way for Google to assume even greater control of the Internet, which ended up triggering a transfer of its management to a group of open source contributors. On the user side, some didn’t wait for Brave to go from blame to exclusion, using apps or browser extensions to do away with AMP pages. Especially since in practice, website publishers have made a lot of progress in recent years to improve the behavior and loading of their sites on mobiles.