[Android] Bypass/Disable Accelerated mobile pages(AMP) from Google search.

[thanuj10]

Did you search for similar issues before submitting this one?
Yes

Description:
Disable Google's AMP webpages as it also another form of tracking.

Device Details:

• Install Type(ARM, x86): All
• Device(Phone, Tablet, Phablet): All
• Android Version: Every supported version of brave.

Brave Version:
1.0.60

Steps to reproduce:
1.Search on Google
2.The search results offer AMP pages instead of the regular webpages.

Actual Behavior
Google search serves AMP pages

Expected Behavior
AMP pages should be skipped and users must directly be taken to the actual webpage.

Is this an issue with Beta build?
Yes.

Is this an issue in the currently released version?
Yes.

Can this issue be consistently reproduced?
Yes.

Website problems only:

• did you check with Brave Shields down?
  -Yes
• did you check in Chrome for same behavior?
  -Yes

Any related issues:
Issue was opened about a year ago and there has been no improvement in this area.

[thanuj10]

No news?

[srirambv]

Its on the list but not a priority right now. If you have a fix for this please open a PR and one of the devs would be happy to help you review it and implement it.

[thanuj10]

Hello. I found a patch to disable AMP links from Brave. Courtesy of Kiwi Browser.
Here is the link - https://github.com/kiwibrowser/privacy_patches/blob/master/Add-possibility-to-remove-AMP-from-search.patch

@srirambv

[Brave-Matt]

+1 from Zendesk user:

[Brave-Matt]

+1 reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/bx34oj/does_android_app_let_you_disable_amp_mobile_pages/

[Brave-Matt]

@anthonypkeane @srirambv,
This issue has been floating around ever since I can remember -- is there any way we can get a second look/a bit of movement on this? More than enough requests for the feature and it's a privacy concern in addition.

[anthonypkeane]

@jumde @tomlowenthal can you please give your thoughts on this one?

[tildelowengrimm]

I think it makes sense to add as a preference for the people particularly frustrated by AMP. I'm leery of making it a default, because it's a substantial deviation from sites' expected behavior, may make some sites quite a hassle to use, and will probably result in increased data charges for those who flip the switch.

[seanlindo]

@tomlowenthal

The expected behavior should be I go to the website I think I’m going to..

[tildelowengrimm]

@seanlindo I understand what you're saying: you don't ever want to hit AMP pages, you want to go directly to pages hosted by the publisher. But that's not where the link in the search results page points. Fundamentally, your complaint is with Google (for linking to the AMP page) and the publisher (for posting an AMP page for Google).

Changing the search results page to point somewhere else is a big change. I think your comment implies that the results page offers both a publisher direct link and an AMP link and Brave is deciding to use the AMP link. That's not the case. Google links to an AMP page, and Brave follows that link just like any other. I think it's reasonable to call that the "expected behavior" — tapping a link takes you to the page the link points to. This issue is about creating a feature which makes some links go to a different place.

[andmade]

Having it as a preference sounds fine to me! I'd just love to see it implemented. This feature is literally the only reason I am using Kiwi Browser, especially since I already use Brave on the desktop.

[szaimen]

Please add this AMP-blocking-feature also do Google news:
news.google.com

[morfikov]

This AMP feature is really irritating...

[Hazbelll]

Hello from 2020! I'd like to chime in and say I too would love to see this addition. AMP is a plague on mobile.

I hope this has not been forgotten (It's been 2 years since this issue was created).

[t0m5k1]

I too would like to see this added to brave on android.

[lazymonkey2]

I hate how news.google.com is using amp pages.
please add this option to android.

[drjackal-git]

Hello. I found a patch to disable AMP links from Brave. Courtesy of Kiwi Browser.
Here is the link - https://github.com/kiwibrowser/privacy_patches/blob/master/Add-possibility-to-remove-AMP-from-search.patch

@srirambv

Why can't dev just merge this patch into brave?

[FairlyIncognito]

Time for Brave to get this done. Other mobile browsers, like Kiwi, already has this feature.

We're nearing 2021 and this still haven't been implemented.

[Hazbelll]

Hello from 2021! At this pace, it will soon be 3 years since this issue was created.

Incredibly sad such a requested feature has been left neglected, even rude that after being bumped, @srirambv lowers its priority, but provides no explanation as to why.

Isn't it a little contradictory a "privacy respecting browser" does not offer a way to bypass Google's AMP foolery?

[bsclifton]

@Hazbelll and others - apologies no progress was made here. We did have someone looking at it a while back (Mar 2020) but they've since left and the work has become a bit stale:
brave/brave-core#4950

Just like all the issues in the issue log, this has a relative priority associated with it. While I'd love this feature too, P4 is at the bottom of things that we'll grab. There are coming up on 3,000 issues and a limited amount of developers here working on those issues (including keeping Chromium up to date).

cc: @anthonypkeane in case we wanted to reprioritize this specific issue

[mjlabe]

I tested the feature on Kiwi and, as I expected, it didn't work. I created my own Google News site where I scraped the main page and replaced the amp urls. What I learned is every couple of months, Google slightly changes the formatting to prevent scraping. As result, any patch that I could conceivably think of would break frequently and I gave up. If anyone has a long term idea, please share. Maybe I'll look into an ML solution. 😛

Setting this to a low priority was generous imo. I don't think there is a permanent solution, so it unfortunately should probably be closed.

[ChildishGiant]

This bot is open source and removes AMP links, maybe someone could have a look at it? https://github.com/KilledMufasa/AmputatorBot

[NuLL3rr0r]

A privacy-focused browser liked Brave should really implement this.

[ChildishGiant]

This could easily be done using greaselion at the point. https://www.amputatorbot.com/

[t0m5k1]

Yes it could even be done using tampermonkey too but we'd rather it be built into the browser.

[SwiftyPop]

Any update on this? It's been a while

[anthonypkeane]

Linked to #18321

Our team are working in this. Thanks

[Ellibis]

Would love to have this feature... <3

[anthonypkeane]

#21643

[bsclifton]

@ShivanKaul can we close this out?

[ShivanKaul]

Yes! #20458 and brave/brave-core#13001 addressed this, in a more privacy-preserving way than tampermonkey or injecting a script :)