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Chrome Experiments with URL-less Web

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

Ja'Achan writes:

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: 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.

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  • (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.

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