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Google Is Serious, Chrome 13 Hides URL Bar

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the is-this-the-end dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few months ago, we heard about Google playing with the idea of killing the URL bar in its Chrome browser. Chrome 13 provides a first view how this feature will work. There is a new flag and a context menu option that hides the traditional URL bar and moves a shortened version into each tab."

37 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. And all for what? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And all this is being done for what? To give me 50 pixels? Whoop-dee-doo.

    1. Re:And all for what? by SolemnDwarf · · Score: 2

      My screen is only 100 pixels tall, you insensitive clod!

    2. Re:And all for what? by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2

      It may be optional if it makes it to a stable build; in its current form it adds a menu option to the tabbar so it can be toggled at will.

    3. Re:And all for what? by _0xd0ad · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you need it, you can always hit F11.

    4. Re:And all for what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you need the URL bar, you can always mouseover the tab.

      Not good enough. When I'm developing a site, I need the URL so I can figure out whether things are working or not. And even when browsing for fun, I want the URL bar so I can modify it.

      On most finance sites, it's faster for me to simply change the "XYZ" in the "&symbol=XYZ" part of the URL than it is to enter it into some search box. On Slashdot, I can just paste &no_d2=1 into the end of a URL. On Fark, I just paste &cpp=1 to get one-page-per-thread view.

    5. Re:And all for what? by plover · · Score: 2

      Safari on the iPhone does it well. The URL bar is scrolled along with the page data. If you need it, just scroll back up, or tap the status bar at the top of the screen to quickly scroll to the top. It's there when you need it, but goes away gracefully when you don't.

      --
      John
    6. Re:And all for what? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And all this is being done for what? To give me 50 pixels? Whoop-dee-doo.

      From Google's standpoint, lack of an address bar can steer more people back to Google for searches.

      From a user's point of view... Well, I use the address bar... But about 80% of my users do not. Even if I give them a web address, they'll go to Google/Yahoo/Bing/whatever and type it in there. So it wouldn't be much of a change for them.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    7. Re:And all for what? by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, it's a bad idea. I happen to like having my URL bar visible, so I can see where I am, make sure I'm not at some phishing site, so I can quickly type in a new address, so I can can copy&paste my current URL into an email and send to someone, etc.

      As an option for netbooks, that's fine, but that's nothing new either. Firefox has always had the option of disabling the "navigation toolbar" if you wanted more screen space. But netbooks are a tiny, tiny minority anyway, so settings optimal for them shouldn't be forced on everyone else by default. Netbooks seem to be dying out anyway, and they seem to have just been a short-lived fad that got supplanted by the iPad.

    8. Re:And all for what? by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 2

      I hope to everything that's holy and unholy that this will remain as a flag or a config setting, not some forced idiocy like hiding the "http://". The whole of Chrome is too well done to have them ruin it with a nonsensical move like this...

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    9. Re:And all for what? by frosty_tsm · · Score: 2

      And I'm excited to not have to look at it when I don't need to. It seems we are at an impasse.

      And that's why it's configurable.

    10. Re:And all for what? by icebraining · · Score: 2

      Uh, even wondered how Chrome does suggestions on the address bar? It sends everything you type to Google's Prediction Service.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
    11. Re:And all for what? by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're not taking it away, they're adding the option to display how you want.

      Doesn't sound like they're "adding an option" from the article. And I don't know about Chrome, but most other browsers have had the ability to disable the URL bar for probably 15 years now. It's been in Firefox (and Netscape before that) for as long as I can remember.

      So, if your iPad ran a full version of Chrome with extensions, would you like that ability to hide a URL bar then? How about a phone?

      Again, I don't know about Chrome, but other browsers have had this ability since the browser was invented. If people are too stupid to go to View->Toolbars->Navigation Toolbar and uncheck it, that's their problem.

      Every time I use a brand-new installation of Firefox, I always have to disable the "Bookmarks Toolbar" which is enabled by default, because I don't find it useful, and I think it's a waste of space (I go to "Bookmarks" from the main menu when I need them). So what do I do? Scream and cry that this toolbar needs to be removed? Nope, I just go to View->Toolbars->Bookmark Toolbar and I uncheck it. Problem solved. Now, I could understand complaints if the only way to remove it was to hack the source code, or to go to "about:config" and search through a couple thousand lines there, but it's not, it's an extremely easy menu setting.

    12. Re:And all for what? by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 2

      Except that it breaks copypaste: when I hit CTRL+C, I expect to see EXACTLY the same thing when hitting CTRL+V, but Chrome modifies the clipboard before posting. I don't like that.
      Also, it may be ideal for you, but it doesn't cut it for me, I liked seeing the protocol prefix. They could at least insert a flag to re-enable it, even if it's off by default.

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    13. Re:And all for what? by CCarrot · · Score: 2

      From a user's point of view... Well, I use the address bar... But about 80% of my users do not. Even if I give them a web address, they'll go to Google/Yahoo/Bing/whatever and type it in there. So it wouldn't be much of a change for them.

      I hear you. Trying to remotely 'troubleshoot' for my parents, it's often a struggle to get them to type the website into "the white box at the top of the screen, by the File/Edit/View thingys". About half the time they wind up typing whatever I tell them into the Google search bar, then we get to spend some quality time with them describing their search results and me trying to figure out which one is the one they want...to my dad, Google is 'the internet'.

      They are getting better at it...but I usually still have to open up whatever program they're using to try to follow along with their 'descriptions'...

      --
      "I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
    14. Re:And all for what? by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 2

      And that's why it's configurable.

      And why Firefox 4 fails utterly. They literally did remove the 'status bar'. Not an ability to hide it, it's gone.

      At least one case where Google isn't forcing the change down on people...what a concept.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    15. Re:And all for what? by norminator · · Score: 2

      You don't have to use a key combination to get to the URL bar, you can just click on the tab. But if you like keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl+L still works to pull up the URL bar and highlight the current URL, and Ctrl+K still works for searching, just as those shortcuts have been standard in most browsers for years now.

      Also, it's not on by default. The ability to even show the option is hidden away in about:flags. Once you allow that option to be shown, you still have to turn it on yourself. It's a very deliberate process.

  2. I will miss the bar by LunaticTippy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am starting to dislike progress. I need a drink.

    --
    Man, you really need that seminar!
    1. Re:I will miss the bar by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What bothered me is Chrome's removal of the bookmars bar. Now it is hidden under the settings menu. I should not have to do this each time I want to go to a bookmark. Worse, they removed the Google search engine bar at the top of the screen. Now I have to hit delete on an url and type whatever I want or click new tab and then type it. Under IE 9 and Firefox I just type in the search bar.

      Seriously Google, you are not saving space by removing these.

      "I am starting to dislike progress. I need a drink."

      I hear you. I had the unfortunate experience with using Fedora 15 with Gnome-shell last night. I just wiped the virtual partition and am installing Fedora 14 with Gnome 2.x for my unix web development. Sure I only have Postgresql 8.x and not 9.0.3 but I keep my sanity in the process.

      All I have to say is thank god for competition with 2 other good browsers. IE 9 actually doesn't suck! It is stunning and fast and in the same league as Firefox 4 and Chrome 10. Competition is a beautiful thing. Issue I have is that Firefox 4 does not accelerate video on Linux so if you have Ubuntu or Fedora you are stuck with Chrome if you want a semi good browsing experience which is annoying.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:I will miss the bar by NNKK · · Score: 2

      What bothered me is Chrome's removal of the bookmars bar. Now it is hidden under the settings menu. I should not have to do this each time I want to go to a bookmark.

      WTF? Just click on "Always Show Bookmarks Bar". You don't have to do anything else. Ever. Your bookmarks bar will be there permanently.

    3. Re:I will miss the bar by __aamnbm3774 · · Score: 2

      CTRL + SHIFT + B will pop the bookmark bar up/down for you.

      But I guess I am expecting too much for people to RTFM.

      And no, I haven't memorized hundreds of keyboard shortcuts. Just the ones that I found interesting/useful. (probably 5 or 6)

  3. Widescreen by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 2

    Kind of a nice way to offset the loss of vertical pixels as monitors move from 4:3(1280*1024) to 16:10(1280*800) to 16:9(1366*768)..

  4. To cluttered. by Beelzebud · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm still waiting for a sleek UI with no buttons, sliders, toggles, or anything else. I just want a brushed aluminum skin on everything, with no controls at all.

    1. Re:To cluttered. by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Steve, is that you?

      --
      Good-bye
    2. Re:To cluttered. by Hultis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The link was broken. Thankfully I had a soon-to-be-antiquated URL bar so I could see what was wrong and change it.

  5. Keyboard shortcut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wonder if I'll still be able to use the F6 shortcut to place the cursor in the address bar? Having to use the mouse to type in a web address would be enough to make me stop using chrome.

    1. Re:Keyboard shortcut? by electrosoccertux · · Score: 4, Informative

      F6? Who uses F6? Try ctrl+L

  6. Vimperator: surprisingly effective and liberating by m_chan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are similar add-ons for Chrome, but Vimperator on Firefox is fabulous for my needs. Everything else looks a cluttered, redundant mess. I am despise the URL bar.

  7. Re:If my clients are any indication few will notic by rtaylor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now you get the point. Google Search is the official bookmark system for Chrome and nobody needs to know the URL because you can always find the best information by punching keywords into your bookmark system.

    --
    Rod Taylor
  8. Phishing trip by Candid88 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a guaranteed fraud magnet.

  9. What loss of pixels? by tepples · · Score: 2

    True, a 720p class monitor is a downgrade. But when you replace a 1280x1024 pixel monitor with a 1920x1080 pixel monitor, you gain vertical pixels, and you also gain the ability to show two pages side-by-side.

    1. Re:What loss of pixels? by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 2

      even then, 1920*1200 monitors (16:10) have been replaced by 1920*1080 (16:9) ones

  10. Really, Really, Really Bad Idea by grahamtriggs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One of the most useful 'innovations' in browsers over the years - aside from tabs - has been the permanent search box, so that we can fire off searches really easily.

    Chrome combined this into the URL box as - reasonably - we don't need two separate boxes cluttering up the display.

    But now to hide the combi-box takes away the useful feature that we had - the ever-present search box.

    Plus, lets not forget that this is a phishers wet dream - you mean we can't see the url of the page we are looking at, just how it looks, and the title in tab? Hide the url, and it becomes a lot more difficult to be sure that the page you are submitting details to is the page that you intended.

    Although I'm currently a Chrome user, I will switch away if this change gets forced on me.

  11. Re:Yeah, but will I be able to kill tabs? by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Informative

    New Tab, New Window might help.

  12. It's called the Location Bar by WebManWalking · · Score: 2

    ... as in window.location.href. MS just had to be different, so they (and only they) call it the Address Bar. But please, not a third name.

    As for the change, I don't care as long as Control-L (Windows) or Command-L (Mac) * unhides it and selects all of the current page's URL, so that typing replaces it. That's the way power users type a new URL using only the keyboard anyway.

    * That's L, as in "Location Bar". Works in MSIE too, but without the current page's URL.

  13. URL add-ons. by Random2 · · Score: 2

    And then we'll see add-ons for chrome that display the URL.

    Full circle!

    --
    "Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
  14. Is Google becoming AOL? by DaveOrZach · · Score: 2

    If memory serves me right, didn't the early versions of AOL work a similar way as the Chrome browser? A user types in a keyword into the AOL broswer and AOL matched the keyword with a URL, website pops up. A user types a keyword in Chrome and Chrome searches your history or uses Google's search engine to match the keyword with a URL, website pops up. I know you can change the search engines in Chrome but the end result is the same; the user doesn't have to know how the Internet works to use the Internet.

    History repeats itself.

  15. Summary is wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm a Chrome engineer. This summary is wrong. The Compact Nav mode is an experiment we're testing. There are no plans right now to turn it on by default for Chrome 13 or any other Chrome release, and in fact there are currently far too many issues with it for us to fix in the M13 timeframe even if we wanted to turn it on by default.