I don’t like Google AMP’s “accelerated mobile pages.” It feels like yet another land grab to take over yet more of the web, eVern more tracking our activity without our permission, and they’ve never even felt faster to me than the original (mobile) webpage. Google AMP also interferes with or flat-out breaks some apps or features, like Safari Reader.
There may be other ways to disable or work around AMP. But thanks to Joe Ortiz, I learned that one of my favorite iOS utilities, Opener, has the option built right in.
At its core, Opener allows you to open links in the apps of your choice. It quickly became a must-have for me.
For example. Say you want to open a Twitter link from a blog post, or a YouTube link someone shared with you. If you tap those links, they’ll open in either their respective native apps (if installed) or a tab in Safari. Opener allows you to quickly open that Twitter link in Tweetbot (or Twitterrific, or many other supported Twitter apps), or that YouTube link in ProTube, a much better YouTube client that adopted things like Split View and Picture in Picture on iPad virtually on day one.
Opener even allows you to set a default browser, of sorts. If you choose a browser other than Safari in Opener’s settings, you can use Opener’s sharing extension to open every link in that other browser.
As for Google AMP, Opener is aware of these links and, by default, will bypass AMP and take you to the original, true URL. Just trigger its app extension on a link, choose to open it in your browser preference, and AMP is kicked to the curb.
This makes me happy, and I thank its developer, Tijo, Inc., for making this such an easy process.