Google Is Serious, Chrome 13 Hides URL Bar

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."

Comments

And all for what?

[Lunix Nutcase]

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

Re:And all for what?

[_0xd0ad]

If you need it, you can always hit F11.

Re:And all for what?

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:And all for what?

[Grishnakh]

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.

I will miss the bar

[LunaticTippy]

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

Re:I will miss the bar

[Billly Gates]

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.

To cluttered.

[Beelzebud]

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.

Re:To cluttered.

[spire3661]

Steve, is that you?

Re:To cluttered.

[Hultis]

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

Keyboard shortcut?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Keyboard shortcut?

[electrosoccertux]

F6? Who uses F6? Try ctrl+L

Vimperator: surprisingly effective and liberating

[m_chan]

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.

Re:If my clients are any indication few will notic

[rtaylor]

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.

Phishing trip

[Candid88]

This is a guaranteed fraud magnet.

Re:Yeah, but will I be able to kill tabs?

[The MAZZTer]

New Tab, New Window might help.

Summary is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

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.