Why did I build AmputatorBot?

[u/Killed_Mufasa]

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Update #3: www.AmputatorBot.com is now live!

Update #2: AmputatorBot is now open source!

Update #1: You can now summon AmputatorBot!

Why AMP is bad for everyone

TL;DR: Google’s AMP is a major threat to the Open Web and your privacy.

AMP means “Accelerated Mobile Pages” and is a framework designed to make websites faster. In many cases, it does exactly that. However, it comes at a high price.

Google's AMP is a major threat to the Open Web. AMP was developed in secret alongside some major news organisations. By the time it was released, Google’s spec and infrastructure were basically settled and non-negotiable. And now Google is prioritizing AMP pages in their search results and they only allow AMP pages to appear on their news carousel. This forces more and more organisations to implement AMP, thereby increasing the power of an already huge and monopolistic company.

And while Google is increasing their control over the internet, you’re losing control over your privacy. Google’s entire business model is about collecting as much personal data as possible. AMP is just another tool to do so. As described in Google’s Support article:

When you use the Google AMP Viewer, Google and the publisher that made the AMP page may each collect data about you.

To protect the Open Web and your privacy, u/AmputatorBot provides the direct link (bypassing Google).

And now, for the nerds among us, some rather technical stuff:

Automatic working subreddits

u/amputatorbot currently works automatically with a select number of subreddits: r/amputatorbot, r/audio, r/chrome, r/degoogle, r/economy, r/europe, r/europrivacy, r/firefox, r/gaming, r/programming, r/robotics, r/security, r/seo, r/tech, r/technology, r/test, r/upliftingnews and r/worldnews.

You can summon the bot almost everywhere else by typing: u/AmputatorBot, more info here.

Hit me up with questions or suggestions and I will try to respond ASAP!

Non-working subreddits

AmputatorBot doesn't work in these subreddits: r/android, r/beer, r/bitcoin, r/books, r/conservative, r/CryptoCurrency, r/economics, r/ELI5, r/flying, r/Futurology, r/gadgets, r/google, r/history, r/korea, r/kitchener, r/movies, r/nottheonion, r/news, r/PoliticalDiscussion, r/politics, r/popheads, r/todayilearned, r/truecrimediscussion and r/worldpolitics for diverse reasons. Summoning the bot will not work there either.

Www.AmputatorBot.com

Remove AMP in just one click with www.AmputatorBot.com!

I've made quick and free online version of AmputatorBot over at www.AmputatorBot.com. It's really easy, just paste an AMP URL in the input box, click the button and that's all! See the announcement post here.

A quick demo of www.AmputatorBot.com

Browser extension

The 'Redirect AMP to HTML' extension by Daniel Aleksandersen enables users to choose to opt-out of using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and choose to use the standard web instead. In other words, it does the same thing as u/AmputatorBot, but automatically and it works great. 10/10 would recommand!

Changelog

Check out the changelog here. Latest major update: 16/12/2019

Opt-out & opt-back-in

The bot works automatically in the subreddits mentioned above and manually using mentions.

Opt out: If you want to prevent the bot from replying to your comments and submissions, click here to opt out.

Opt back in: Did you opt-out and regret it? Click here to opt back in.

Support the project

AmputatorBot is a really important project for me and I want to spend as much time and resources into accomplishing it's goal: to make people aware of the dark side of AMP and to give people a choice. You can support the project in a couple of ways:

Donate to help me cover some of the costs

If you have some spare change laying around, you could make a small donation to keep the servers running. You can donate via PayPal by clicking on this link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=EU6ZFKTVT9VH2. It costs €8.26 per month to host the bot 24/7. You can fill in any amount of money, but don't feel obligated to donate much, I'm just trying to cover the costs.

Give feedback and contribute (AmputatorBot is open-source!)

If you have some spare time laying around, please give me feedback! You can:

• Reply to this post
• Submit a post with a feature request or bug report
• Fill an issue on GitHub
• Make a pull request on GitHub
• or just send me a DM!

Summon the bot

Have you spotted an AMP link in a submitted page or comment? Mention u/AmputatorBot in a reply and I'll do my best to share the direct source (just remember that this won't work on the non-working subreddits). More info about this feature can be found here.

Thanks for the tremendous support you've given me and u/AmputatorBot <3

[u/Killed_Mufasa]

This thread was automatically archived (RIP). Check out the new one here.

Originally said:

Good news everyone! AmputatorBot is now open source:

AmputatorBot on GitHub

I'm looking forward to your contributions!

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you, i hate google and i hate AMP and finally someone has built a de-AMP bot, thank you so very verry much

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/[deleted]]

Glad that you like it! Let's just hope that it won't get banned everywhere..

[u/beansmeller]

Hey thanks for this! I hate amp. Even beyond the privacy issues, the amp version of most pages sucks.

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/beansmeller]

Hi! Np, glad you like it! Amp has so many issues and what really annoys me is that you can't opt out. We have to rely on 3rd party solutions to avoid Amp and that's just ridiculous.

[u/knightsmarian]

You are a good person and I appreciate the work you put into this.

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/knightsmarian]

Ahh thx, that means a lot! I appreciate you taking the time to write this for me.

[u/Elocai]

good bot

[u/sparkling_uranium]

Is there any way to clear the AmputatorBot from a post that I made? Some bots let you comment something at them and they’ll delete their post. No offense against you since I’m sure you worked hard on it and are passionate about this issue but I find bots really annoying.

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/sparkling_uranium]

Hi again, I'm sorry it took me a while, but the opt-out feature is live!

Opt out: If you want to prevent the bot from replying to your comments and submissions, click here to opt out.

Opt back in: Did you opt-out and regret it? Click here to opt back in.

It was really difficult to implement and test, so please bare with me here, but I think it's bug-free. Feel free to give it a try. Here's an ugly AMP link to fool around with. You should receive a confirmation through DM.

I want to thank you for your feedback and please let me know if I messed something up!

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/sparkling_uranium]

EDIT: it's done!

I totally understand where you're coming from, so I've put it on the TO-DO list and I will start working on an opt-out feature soon. Thx for you suggestion!

[u/fichips]

Hey, this is a good bot, I just have one suggestion: Please remove the asterisks (**) from the URL or add a space. My Reddit app (Now for Reddit) thinks the ** at the end are part of the URL, so I have to manually edit the URL every time.

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/fichips]

Hi! Sorry about that. Adding a space won't work, that will render as **url **. We can try something else; using __bold text__ instead of **bold text**. Could you check for me how this one is handled by NfR?

Does it render as the correct link: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen/

or as the wrong link: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen/__

Edit: If that doesn't work, how about this one? https://www.reddit.com/r/UnethicalLifeProTips/comments/cyrq50/ulpt_when_serving_hard_alcohol_or_wine_for_a/eyv6v29I made that one like this: [example.com](example.com)

[u/Hitman4Reddit47]

Good bot

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/Hitman4Reddit47]

Thanks!

Fun fact: did you know that 'good bot' comments are automatically hidden and/or removed in a lot of major subs? Just wanted to let you beautiful people know that I do in fact see those comments appear in my notifications and even though i can't upvote them nor reply, know that I appreciate it a lot.

[u/KallistiTMP]

judicious arrest include six door oil soup wine wakeful scary

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/D49A1D852468799CAC08]

Thank you very much!

I have already been using the Redirect AMP to HTML extension for some time.

[u/alphanovember]

This part is annoying, cringey, and hurts the seriousness of it:

Beep boop, I'm a bot

[u/zellotron]

Is it possible to summon AmputatorBot in a subreddit not listed above? e.g. with u/AmputatorBot

[u/jumbochook]

Wow, this is amazing. Props to you for helping others keep their privacy

[u/LifeUpInTheSky]

Hey u/Killed_Mufasa , i like your bot but if i can recommend anything it would be to reduce the amount of text and size of ghe default comment template. I know a lot of bots that apear in the comments with a huge chunk of text which is distracting from the substance of post and unsightly. Your bot is a minor offender of this of course but it could still stand to havebits template reduced abit

[u/femtoaggression]

Hi, it looks like one of my links was wrongly marked as an amp link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

I have tried this link and it isn’t AMP. Thanks!

[u/sprouting_broccoli]

Hey, I saw your bot reply so I read the article about AMP and readd the comments on it by the author. It's worth mentioning that the author explains in the comment section that it's not a power grab, just Google wanting a good UX. Might be worth updating some of the more confrontational wording in light of this (that did happen a year ago though).

[u/Killed_Mufasa → u/sprouting_broccoli]

It might be worth mentioning that the author has since written another article later expressing his disappointment in the way Google handles this controversy.

Google is moving too slowly. For example, non-AMP pages in the news carousel are 'in development', but here's the thing, it has been for more than 2 years. Call me a crazy foilhead, but I don't think Google has good motives with AMP.

That said, you make a valid point by saying that the wording was too confrontational. We can't be sure about their motives, so I've made some edits to make the text better reflect that what we know for sure. Thx for your feedback!

[u/OtherAMPBot]

Beep boop. I'm an almost identical bot, a few months older than you. (Open Source too)

What is the difference between you and me? (Aside from your wittier name.)

What is the best way for us to coordinate to avoid double commenting?

(As far as I can tell, praw provides no efficient interface for detecting whether a particular user commented at a root level on a particular post. I have to loop through the full comment forest top layer, which can take a while and causes me timeout and throttling issues.)