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Chrome May Drop the URL Bar
An anonymous reader writes "There isn't much Google can still eliminate from the browser's interface. Yet Google appears to be considering a drastic step to free up space in the UI: It may simply kill the URL bar. Instead of showing the URL bar all the time, it may be hidden within tabs. There are some other features coming as well. For example, Google will allow users to be logged into different Google accounts at the same time, as long as you use those accounts in different windows."
Let Google be your portal to the entire Internet! Sheesh.
I guess the "Really Stupid Idea Department" really does exist because I can only see dropping the address bar as a time-losing feature. In Opera I have two horizontal bars, one for the menu and one for everything else (address, navigation, other buttons). Just make your UI extremely configurable, like Opera's, and you have no problems. I have my tabs stacked vertically on the left hand side. I can have more than 50 tabs visible, this way, with no downside.
...but that's going a little overboard. The one thing that you really shouldn't ever try to shuffle away on a browser is the URL bar.
I don't think that's something I could ever get used to.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Sounds like a GREAT way to make phishing attempts easier
Sorry but I don't like searching for every single thing when I already know the address. This is just dumb. Far too much emphasis place on searching these days. I rarely need to search anymore as I've been online long enough to basically know where most of the important stuff is.
Just an attempt to generate hits for google here. I dumped Chrome for Firefox the other day for reasons like this. Google controls enough, it's time to take them down a notch. They make some cool stuff but I'm not willing to tie so much into one company.
We at the National Phishing Association greatly support this suggestion.
I understand the drive to minimize the UI in popular applications, but there's a point where it is taken too far. When widgets with intuitive functions start to have extra, magic functionality added on in order to get rid of other widgets, that raises a yellow flag with me. A tab, I get. A text box, I get. A combo tab and text box, hmm, I could get used to it, I guess. But taken too far, I can see UI's being without any chrome at all, and interacting with it becomes a mysterious combination of gestures, control keys, and hovering over the right places. I'm not a fan of that.
Mozilla already has a Labs project that goes even further by hiding ALL the UI and showing it only on demand. It's called Home Dash.
Also, even with a FP, you could at least say something just as inane but a little more on topic, like:
Instead of showing the URL bar all the time, it be hidden within tabs.
"It be hidden? What do we pay the editors for? It is hidden, or it would be hidden or something. Come on, don't we have anyone here who hasn't outsourced their job to Elbonia?"
But thanks for trying. It was a half-assed job that I wouldn't be proud of, but if that's all you have, then frame it and show it to your mother every time she comes into the basement to refill your Cheetos.
Learn to love Alaska
Instead of showing the URL bar all the time, it be hidden within tabs.
Arrr! There be nothing wrong with this style of writing, matey!
I can't use Chrome, because I hate tabs and I want my window management to be handled consistently. Mozilla loves tabs too, but unlike Chrome, they give me the option to easily turn off the features I don't want to use. I can already use Firefox without a URL bar. But the point is, it's left up to me. As long as Chrome doesn't respect my well-justified and not unusual choices, I'll not even consider trying it.