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posted by Woods on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-all-those-URLs-I-memorized-are-worthless dept.

Yesterday, a Canary build of Google Chrome removed something kind of important from the browser: the URL. Basically, it only shows the domain and leaves the rest of the URL bar as a search field.

Allen Pike, a blogger who writes "about technology and crap like that" suggests burying the URL like this will probably have some usability and security benefits. From the article:

More recently, browsers started hiding the URL scheme. http:// was no more, as far as most users were concerned. In iOS 7, Mobile Safari went even further and hid everything about the URL except the domain. With the Chrome "origin chip" change, the URL will move out of the field entirely, to a tidy little button that many users will never even realize is clickable.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:47PM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:47PM (#38618) Journal

    ..the reintroduction of the url's was the main feature in a recent release, and also was the most requested feature for quite some time.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DarkMorph on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:48PM

    by DarkMorph (674) on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:48PM (#38619)
    This is an excellent change. One way or another, it will make phishing attempts that much easier!

    What next, will they remove the browser's display of an anchor's hyperlink so you have no clue where the link you might click goes?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:56PM (#38621)

      That could be next, but why don't we just skip to the end and make a pageless internet. No more annoying bs anywhere, just nothingness. In that internet of the future, there is no need for net neutrality, since there is nothing. It's also safe.

      • (Score: 1) by dast on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:17PM

        by dast (1633) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:17PM (#38629)

        Best suggestion ever.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:45PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:45PM (#38644)

        AdBlock <html />. Then the UX guys will probably cream themselves at the beautiful white nothingness.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by forsythe on Thursday May 01 2014, @09:10PM

          by forsythe (831) on Thursday May 01 2014, @09:10PM (#38651)

          I can only think of one way to make that better. Instead of white, off-white. Sort of light-gray-ish. Eggshell, I think they call it.

          So is the world going to just send me a check, or will it be deposited to my bank account directly?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @09:17PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @09:17PM (#38653)

            We'll send an off-white blank piece of paper.

        • (Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:29PM

          by Horse With Stripes (577) on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:29PM (#38684)

          The UX people will not like a blank page because the white space will not have two directions off of the page. "Any direction" is only one direction, just ask any designer.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:58PM (#38649)

        The trend is unification. Let's put all the content on one page accessible through only 15 convenient plugins.

    • (Score: 2) by GlennC on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:04PM

      by GlennC (3656) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:04PM (#38625)

      Perhaps they'll replace everything with one button....conveniently tied to your credit card, of course!

      --
      Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
    • (Score: 1) by cnst on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:23PM

      by cnst (4275) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:23PM (#38631)

      > What next, will they remove the browser's display of an anchor's hyperlink so you have no clue where the link you might click goes?

      Didn't Apple already do this with Safari back in the day a few years back?

      IIRC, they've removed the status bar by default, and didn't have any on-hover-status-bar-pop-ups back then.

      • (Score: 1) by datapharmer on Friday May 02 2014, @10:51AM

        by datapharmer (2702) on Friday May 02 2014, @10:51AM (#38838)

        yes, also even mac users don't use safari. it does crazy stuff like switching requests for https back to http with no prompt, warning or expaination.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:23PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:23PM (#38632) Journal

      This is an excellent change. One way or another, it will make phishing attempts that much easier!

      I agree. This is pretty dumb. Have we not JUST been taught a huge lesson about blindly trusting things we can't really see?
      Just when you've even taught Grandma to evaluate URLs to make sure she is at the right place, Google takes that away too!

      It also makes linking harder, sending URLs harder.

      Its whole purpose is so Google can play games with the URLs in the future to make sure all your subsequent clicks come back through them.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Angry Jesus on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:32PM

        by Angry Jesus (182) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:32PM (#38633)

        While I agree with the general sentiment, the following is not true:

        > It also makes linking harder, sending URLs harder.

        Try it out today where the http: protocol is already stripped, both chrome and firefox are smart enough that when you cut and paste (or drag-and-drop) the address, the pasted data automagically contains the full URL, protocol included.

        • (Score: 1) by boltronics on Friday May 02 2014, @03:33AM

          by boltronics (580) on Friday May 02 2014, @03:33AM (#38735) Homepage Journal

          This is super frustrating behaviour too! Sometimes I want the entire URL, but other times I just want the domain name (eg. to copy it into an xterm to run dig against).

          Because I have to copy from the start of the string, browsers automatically add in the https:/// [https] at the start, so I have to go and delete that in the xterm manually, wasting any time saving the copy and paste operation may have gained. If this proposed change takes place, one may find themselves need to strip out other parts of the URL from the clipboard also, making the situation that much worse. Just show me the full text, and let me select the bits I want to copy myself - like in every other application!

          For those curious, the solution in Firefox is found in about:config, by setting browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false.

          --
          It's GNU/Linux dammit!
    • (Score: 2) by kebes on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:35PM

      by kebes (1505) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:35PM (#38635)

      One way or another, it will make phishing attempts that much easier!

      Will it? The design in TFA shows just the domain name (e.g. "amazon.com"), so what's being hidden is the actual page address you're visiting (as well as the protocol, anchor, GET vars, etc.). Human attention/vision being what it is, hiding these other things will actually make the domain name more visible and thus make it easier to spot the difference between "amazon.com" and "amaz0n.com" or "arnazon.com". (Indeed many modern browsers highlight the domain name by putting the rest of the URL in grey-text.)

      I think there are lots of reasons to hate this idea (I routinely use the other parts of the URL to know where I am, or edit the URL to change a var or jump to another page), but I'm not sure that it will make phishing worse. When it comes to phishing, I would guess that the most important thing is deciding whether or not you trust the domain you've just jumped into (and the specific page within is less important). Am I wrong?

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by physicsmajor on Friday May 02 2014, @12:45AM

        by physicsmajor (1471) on Friday May 02 2014, @12:45AM (#38704)

        That sounds good until you realize that modern (and even not-so-modern) browsers are UTF-8 compliant.

        In the higher character codes there are many, many options which are almost visually indistinguishable from their Roman counterparts. Cyrillic is often used for this type of substitution attack. It's called an IDN Homograph, and nothing you do other than physically typing the URL using your own keyboard in a new tab will save you from it.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: 1) by jasassin on Friday May 02 2014, @12:54AM

          by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Friday May 02 2014, @12:54AM (#38706) Homepage Journal

          This was enlightening. I never knew about this and it's scary. Please mod parent up.

          --
          jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Friday May 02 2014, @08:50AM

          by Aiwendil (531) on Friday May 02 2014, @08:50AM (#38810) Journal

          This tells us that what really is needed is a "red little 8"-icon next to the "padlock"-icon's place in the adress-bar when visiting a domain with utf8-characters.

          And maybe also a little icon that shows a flag of which country the server one connects to are located in..

          And also - for developers - something that prefixes the domain with its ip-adress (prefixes it like how TFA showed the domain to be displayed would be handy).

          More data is needed, especially if it can be made glanceable and ignorable.

          • (Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Friday May 02 2014, @03:04PM

            by physicsmajor (1471) on Friday May 02 2014, @03:04PM (#38932)

            Doesn't work, because while that might be a relevant indicator for those of us in a Roman-character world, it's meaningless for the rest of the international character universe because it's always on.

            The flag isn't a bad idea, but you can find this anyway if you want through extensions (and it's often not what you think). Also, botnets etc. can easily obfuscate their addresses behind bit.ly or goo.gl links (always a terrible idea to click these) which resolve to IDN homographs reaching compromised machines in one's home country. Not very hard to do this based on the country of the requestor...

            If it's ignorable, it's useless (see: Vista user access control). I've yet to encounter a glanceable solution that actually increases security generally, for all users. The only solution is physically re-typing the exact address you think you see, using your own keyboard.

            • (Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Friday May 02 2014, @03:23PM

              by Aiwendil (531) on Friday May 02 2014, @03:23PM (#38940) Journal

              I live in a country (sweden) where the alphabet has three non-roman characters, so I'm aware it would cause lots of false positives - but it would at least give a heads up, in regions where utf8-domains are the norm it probably could be best solved simply by having a "language-specific whitelist" that warns if any character comes from outside this set - we still would have the 1/i/L-problem however, but it would reduce the number of things that easily gets past the radar.

              I was pondering about that, and yeah, having a split (diagnoally) flag probably would be better, with one half for the domain one is connected to, and the other half from where the most content is pulled/where the first non-redirect is located.

              Never used vista so I have no idea how its access control works. But in general the idea isn't security but rather to make things easier to spot (thereby nudging the bar ever so slighty higher)

              If your requirement is for all users pretty much nothing works. Just for kicks try to design a system that would work for the following three users: 1) a blind user 2) a deaf user 3) stephen hawkings

              But as stated - the point isn't security but rather to raise the bar slightly (pretty much the same as with all selfsigned and expired certs - no as safe as a current and verified cert, but a lot better than plaintext [as long as you remember that nothing is safe])

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:31AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:31AM (#39130)

                I don't think there is a need for a warning (in the web browser), if the domain registrars simply do not allow letters in domain names that look like other letters... in the swedish .se example the letters they allow are åäö and various accents, they also allow hebrew letters but they are not allowed in the same domain name as the latin characters so there is no risk of them being used to look like another character.

                (the web browsers do have a white list of domain registries that prevent IDN homograph attacks, showing punycode for others)

                • (Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:32PM

                  by Aiwendil (531) on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:32PM (#39216) Journal

                  Interesting info about what .SE allows in their names - thanks.

                  I used swedish as an exmaple of false positive with a utf8 warning.

                  (For a thing I've stumbled over in japanese)
                  A fun case where I would appreciate a warning for utf8 would be in the cases of dash/minus/ichi/hyphen , they are four different signs, and even when reducing "visually similar" we still have the problem with ichi (unless we plan on either banning japanese numerals or allowing equal-sings (ni)).
                  This problem is compunded by the japanese habit of using arabic numerals instead of their own even when writing in kanji (so it makes sense to keep the minus/dash sign when writing in kanji, it also makes sense to keep the non-formal ichi-symbol, and it makes sense to keep them separate (and to just disallow the non-formal ichi would cause problems with 'ni' unless one plans to allow equal-signs, and then we have the question of how odd dash and equal would look next to 'san')).

                  Then again, in this specific case it probably would be better to simply enough write utf8 and ascii in different colours - which probably is a better solution to being with.

                  So, I retract my idea of having a 'red 8'-warning and replace it with an idea of simply showing utf8 and ascii-characters in different colors (or regular/bold).

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 02 2014, @02:23AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:23AM (#38721) Homepage

        I've seen many, many phishing attempts that go to a perfectly legit domain that's been compromised, often with some long path to where they've hidden their nasties. Personal webspace on various ISPs is commonly so used, so the root may be something as well-known as, say, verizon.com. And then there are the lookalike domains, which the average person won't notice isn't for real, if only because they're not expecting it. Seen some of those in phish emails, too.

        Once upon a time, when FTP hacking was all the rage, I was looking for some file, found a link on Google, went there... longest path in the known universe and just the IP number showing in the address bar. Curious, I hied myself to the root, and found I was on Halliburton's FTP server. Which had at least a dozen different filedumps in its back reaches. Anyway, point is just because it's a known domain doesn't make it immune. Server security is better today, but still not perfect.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by jcross on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:35PM

      by jcross (4009) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:35PM (#38636)

      If they're still showing the domain, URLs should be equally easy to check for phishiness. Maybe even easier for Grandma without all the other URL cruft, e.g. something like "evil.io/www.yourbank.com/check-balance.jsp?un=Gra ndma" might not look as legit if presented as just "evil.io".

    • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:37PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:37PM (#38638)

      Goatse posters will rejoice at that suggestion.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:45PM

        by Appalbarry (66) on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:45PM (#38669) Journal

        Goatse [cargocollective.com] posters will rejoice at that suggestion.

        (fixed that for you....)

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:45PM

      by edIII (791) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:45PM (#38643)

      Whoever comes up with that crap is fairly unsophisticated to say the least.

      Security through obscurity never works. More precisely, it works all the way up to the point that it doesn't, and then it's always catastrophic. So the idea is by not showing this to 99% of the people that the information is somehow protected from that 1% that can use a plethora of tools to reveal it.

      Assuming they could get the idea off the ground, there would be hordes of average web developers that won't give the URL a seconds thought anymore as a possible attack vector.

      Then you have the claim of greater usability. Only true if you have a very unsophisticated understanding of web technologies in the first place. Greater usability to the person is probably a minimalist approach showing no information that the lowest common denominator can't process and the use of strategic whitespace everywhere.

      This is about dumbing down the experience for most people and removing the extraneous crap. I guarantee you that if you put this person in a room with 10 engineers he will have reinvented web-tv in 1 hour.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:26PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:26PM (#38666) Journal

      Since the upgrade to Firefox 29 today, this hyperlink anchor display has indeed vanished for me (although I have no idea whether it's because of some bad interaction from extensions rather than a genuine change of Firefox; anyway, the update broke that, and several other things, too).

      If it were not for the extensions, I'd consider switching browsers again. Except that I have no ideas to what; there seem to be no reasonable browsers left.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 1) by NowhereMan on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:30PM

        by NowhereMan (3980) on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:30PM (#38685)
        Have a look at Pale Moon. It's based on FF and most extensions work. They are also keeping the current interface.

        http://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:30AM (#38714)

          >They are also keeping the current interface.

          The best thing about it is, with just a few changes in the about:config section you can get back a similar FF 3.5 look and feel. And it's 64-bit.

          And they don't use the retarded version numbers as much as mozilla does (current is 24.5.0 at the time of this writing).

        • (Score: 2) by LookIntoTheFuture on Friday May 02 2014, @01:56AM

          by LookIntoTheFuture (462) on Friday May 02 2014, @01:56AM (#38717)
          "Have a look at Pale Moon. It's based on FF and most extensions work. They are also keeping the current interface.

          http://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]"

          Seconded. I started using it about a month ago, after using Firefox exclusively since it was called Phoenix. To me, it is what Firefox should be.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @03:09AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @03:09AM (#38732)

          Pale Moon is an Open Source, Firefox-based web browser for Microsoft Windows...

          And that's where I stopped paying attention.

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 02 2014, @02:29AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:29AM (#38722) Homepage

        SeaMonkey is still decidedly old-fashioned....

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 1) by Magic Oddball on Friday May 02 2014, @08:33AM

        by Magic Oddball (3847) on Friday May 02 2014, @08:33AM (#38807) Journal

        A lot of Firefox extensions are also available for SeaMonkey these days, and a long list have been converted by Seamonkey forum members (they'll convert or help others convert any others on request):
        Modded Extensions for SeaMonkey [mozillazine.org]

        I switched over a few months ago now, and really wish I'd found out that it's a viable option before then -- it's what Firefox would have been like if the devs had focused on resource usage, stability, and useful features instead of trying to turn it into a crappy Chrome clone.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 02 2014, @06:28PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday May 02 2014, @06:28PM (#39017) Journal

          Thanks, sounds great. I was once a SeaMonkey user, but finally had switched to Firefox because of the extensions issue. But if that has improved in the mean time, maybe I should try it again.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 1) by Gavster on Friday May 02 2014, @01:59AM

      by Gavster (4280) on Friday May 02 2014, @01:59AM (#38719)

      Chrome already supports this by using an accelerated graphics overlay to display the link target: At least on Windows, once other applications try to make use of OpenGL it stops displaying in short order.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday May 02 2014, @02:52AM

      by Bot (3902) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:52AM (#38729) Journal

      You almost got it, next will be the removal of hyperlinks, so that navigation will resemble a slide show with the content decided by the browser maker. All in the name of making things easy, officially.

      --
      Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 1) by halcyon1234 on Friday May 02 2014, @01:10PM

      by halcyon1234 (1082) on Friday May 02 2014, @01:10PM (#38889)

      What next, will they remove the browser's display of an anchor's hyperlink so you have no clue where the link you might click goes?

      Well, they could always hide the Status Bar by default (or remove it as a feature all together). And then they could encourage everyone to use URL shortening services... perhaps by even automatically replacing all URLs server-side on most pages. And even if you look beyond the shorturl, you won't get an informative URL, because all hyperlinks are just n-deep layer of redirects to various click-trackers before finally reaching the destination.

      So in other words-- how things are right fucking now. =(

      --
      Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Cowherd on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:02PM

    by Anonymous Cowherd (3699) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:02PM (#38624)

    This is going to force everyone to "share" links not with URLs but through their facebook or other logins so that big brother can snoop more effortlessly.
    Don't be evil, but it's ok to help others who are evil.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:48PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:48PM (#38645)

      ...aaaand there's the probably motivation. I swear, lately I might as well invert Hanlon's Razor; it would be more accurate that way.

      "You didn't kill us, but you handed us over to those who would. That gets you nothing."

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 1) by Teckla on Friday May 02 2014, @01:25PM

      by Teckla (3812) on Friday May 02 2014, @01:25PM (#38895)

      This is going to force everyone to "share" links not with URLs but through their facebook or other logins so that big brother can snoop more effortlessly.

      You can click on the domain name (it's a button) to get the full URL for easy copying and sharing.

      Don't be evil, but it's ok to help others who are evil.

      Let's be very careful with our accusations of evil. The more our accusations turn out to be false, the more they'll be ignored in the future.

  • (Score: 1) by goodie on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:34PM

    by goodie (1877) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:34PM (#38634) Journal

    Yes, let's make sure we dumb it down for users so that facebook, google and other big companies are the only ones which can actually direct you to websites. This is freakin' moronic. Why don't you remove the ads instead, now that would be useful.
    But good for security? I really don't think so. If you can't validate the URL you can't tell where you are/are going.

    • (Score: 1) by NowhereMan on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:36PM

      by NowhereMan (3980) on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:36PM (#38686)

      Net Neutrality? We don't need no stinkin' Net Neutrality

  • (Score: 2) by tbuddy on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:35PM

    by tbuddy (932) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:35PM (#38637)

    I don't really find it to be a huge deal as whenever I want to copy a URL I hit the standard CMD+L to grab the URL. This still works that way, though I like the way Safari puts the domain in black and the remainder of the URL in gray. The way Chrome Canary has it as a badge isn't ideal to me and has far too much space essentially wasted on the search bar. A simple change to flags [chrome] will allow you to change it, or any of the other experiments. Complaining about alpha clients experiments is kind of a luddite reaction to me. The whole point is to have options for people to play around and test the waters and totally not indicative of what the future holds. They specifically put out new features for people to test the waters. Most of the features in Canary that do make it over to Chrome can be turned off if one chooses, so it isn't as though you are forced to use new behaviors if you don't want to. That's a sharp contrast from some of the things Apple or Opera does, which force you to downgrade or wait on a new build.

    • (Score: 1) by LegendaryTeeth on Friday May 02 2014, @02:33AM

      by LegendaryTeeth (2431) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:33AM (#38724)

      Why put things out to "test the waters" if people aren't allowed to complain about it?

      Seems quite reasonable to look at something like this and talk about how it is or isn't a stupid idea. In fact it seems like the whole point.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:42PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:42PM (#38639)

    In a phrase, the reasoning behind this. Fuck the UI experts who think this is a good idea. Fuck them long, and fuck them hard. I value actual functionality; apparently this is a silly position to hold, though.

    People who've announced retarded UI changes this week:
    [X] Mozilla
    [X] Google Chrome
    [  ] Microsoft Windows
    [  ] X-Box One/PS-4
    [  ] Ubuntu

    Any bets?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:51PM

      by GeminiDomino (661) on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:51PM (#38647)

      To be fair, Mozilla announced theirs a couple of weeks back. They just shat them on us this week...

      --
      "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:51PM (#38646)

    imo it won't be long until any and all customization features in the browser go the way of about:config.

    when something isn't broken...

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by michealpwalls on Thursday May 01 2014, @09:59PM

    by michealpwalls (3920) on Thursday May 01 2014, @09:59PM (#38662) Homepage Journal

    Google actually wants us all to search to find the resources we want? Who could have expected this turn of events!? :)

    If Google does not have the resource indexed, I wonder how you would gain access to it?

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 02 2014, @12:20AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 02 2014, @12:20AM (#38696)

      If it's not in the Jedi catalog, then it doesn't exist...

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Ryuugami on Friday May 02 2014, @01:48AM

      by Ryuugami (2925) on Friday May 02 2014, @01:48AM (#38715)

      If Google does not have the resource indexed, I wonder how you would gain access to it?

      Through the chillingefects.org, of course.

      --
      If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 02 2014, @02:33AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:33AM (#38723) Homepage

        You may be more prophetic than you know... :(

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 1) by NoMaster on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:59PM

    by NoMaster (3543) on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:59PM (#38675)

    In iOS 7, Mobile Safari went even further and hid everything about the URL except the domain.

    And that's one of the most annoying things about IOS 7. Well, that, and the brain-dead idea of showing the shift key is active by setting its bgcolor to match the rest of the keyboard...

    --
    Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
  • (Score: 1) by number6 on Friday May 02 2014, @01:51AM

    by number6 (1831) on Friday May 02 2014, @01:51AM (#38716) Journal

    These arguments about UI design and user preference never fucking end!!

    Why is the design paradigm always of the form: INPUT-->[BLACK_BOX]-->OUTPUT

    Why is the design paradigm always of the form: X discards Y full stop and 'get over it'.

    Why is the design not: INPUT-->[WHITE_BOX]-->OUTPUT

    Why don't the people making these GUI systems make them 100% configurable by Userland?

    Why don't the people who create all this shit re-engineer the software so that the GUI is like a hot-swappable plugin with total configuration options. I am also thinking of operating systems here too. This is achievable if third-party Programmers (and UX designers) are given a good API and SDK from the creators of the host software.

    These GUI preference arguments should not need to exist !!!!!!!!!!!!!

    If a UX designer thinks he has invented a better presentation paradigm for your Software/OS ..that's fine, he can package it as a plugin. The user then goes to his Preferences/Control Panel page and he should see a section named "User Interface". The main page here should have a drop-down list of available user interface modules (ie. "Plugins")......the user should be able to click on this drop-down list and see choices like these examples:

    Example 1 - we are using Firefox web browsing software:

        Default (Firefox 30.0)     //this is the built-in option
        Firefox 3.x classic           //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party
        Firefox 1.x classic           //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party
        Palemoon 30.x               //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party
        Palemoon 3.x classic      //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party

    Example 2 - we are using a MS Windows operating system:
    each item is a plugin added by the user which changes the Desktop Environment, Window Manager and all elements to have the same look and feel of that system...to remove the plugin, user chooses another option from the drop-down list, reboots the computer and then navigates to the plugin folder and deletes the plugin if he wants.

        Default (Windows 8)     //this is the built-in option
        Windows 7                    //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party
        Windows XP                  //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party
        Windows 2000              //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party
        Windows 98                 //this is a plugin packaged by a third-party

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @07:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @07:42AM (#38787)

      Why don't the people making these GUI systems make them 100% configurable by Userland?

      1) Defaults are important

      You don't go to a good restaurant and expect to have to configure the entire experience to your liking. You trust that the chef and restaurant manager would have picked good defaults. If all diners are expected to configure everything then it's not a good restaurant and the chef is crap.

      Same goes for good cars. You can have them user configurable, but the defaults are important. A good car would have good defaults.

      2) More choice is not magically good. Not all choices are good. Some choices might actually be >90% bad, so it's best to not support those choices at all. Increasing the number of bad choices just makes it more likely for the user to make bad choices and experience bad outcomes.

      • (Score: 1) by number6 on Friday May 02 2014, @08:22AM

        by number6 (1831) on Friday May 02 2014, @08:22AM (#38802) Journal

         
           --> "Defaults are important ... blah blah blah"

        Did you read the rest of my post? Default is the built-in option unless a user chooses to install another plugin. Your restaurant/car analogy is nothing but better-than-you scaremongering designed to protect some elitist lifestyles and is just plain bullshit. I'd be making plans to get rid of people like you if I was in charge.
         
         
           --> "More choice is not magically good ... blah blah blah"

        Good, bad, blah blah blah more better-than-you scaremongering shit that says nothing; the only thing not good enough here is you. Getting rid of people like you from application and operating system design teams would be a fantastic move by people involved in the upper echelons of the computer industry.
         

  • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday May 02 2014, @02:39AM

    by istartedi (123) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:39AM (#38726) Journal

    Since their slogan was "don't be Evil" I always figured they'd end up as one of the most evil companies on the planet. That's just the way humanity is. Anything idealistic tends to get perverted. The more idealistic it is, the more perverse it tends to be. Hence, "don't be Evil" is likely to get about as perverse as it comes. This is only the beginning. The ultimate Google API to be placed in the browser, your car, and just about anything else will be reduced to a single button marked "Submit".

    Oh crap... I'm using Chrome on Soylent and it's already happening. Oh well... no choice but to push it...

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday May 02 2014, @02:42AM

      by istartedi (123) on Friday May 02 2014, @02:42AM (#38727) Journal

      Awww crap, I meant to put "UI" not "API".

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      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 1) by acharax on Friday May 02 2014, @04:51AM

    by acharax (4264) on Friday May 02 2014, @04:51AM (#38746)

    Whatever "convincing" argument can be brought in favor of this, and I'm sure something could be concocted to that end, this is but another step toward the mean UI "experts" have decided to regress interface design to. "Let's remove all potential points of failure, surely that'll stop simple minded people from hurting their poor brains." Perhaps, if the reasoning behind these actions was honest I'd be able to swallow my bile and accept it, but it's yet more change for the sake of change, change for the sake of being different, a proxy by which marketing hopes to appeal to the ever increasing web hipster crowd.

    To some extent this is a self fulfilling prophecy. Breed a userbase that becomes more and more overwhelmed by anything that remotely resembles complexity because they're never posed by anything that could be taken as such, and you'll soon have ample future excuses to cull features at your heart's desire whenever you're no longer in the mood to support them. I might be biased and bitter about this, but I also think this trend endangers quality engineering because of the dishonest reasons it grants developers to curtail features that they feel are hard to maintain.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 02 2014, @05:56AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 02 2014, @05:56AM (#38764) Journal

      Make the UI transparent if it hurts simple brains all the better as it will have a self cleaning effect ;-)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @07:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @07:04AM (#38777)

      Not that I am defending this but think about this.

      Look to the url right now that you can see for this message. It is basically a domain, (http if you bothered to turn it back on), then a bunch of gobbly gook. Yep to most people in the 'real world' most URLs are meaningless. Some are crazy long that dont even fit in the edit control. Full of question marks slashes and commands that only the person who wrote the site knows what it really means.

      I can see this making sense to do. However, so long as I have the option to turn it off and put it back easily. That is the mark of a good GUI. Let me do dumb things but give me a good 'best path' for the other cases.