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Mozilla Labs: the URL Bar Has To Go

An anonymous reader writes with an editorial from ConceivableTech "Since Google's move to enable users to hide the URL bar, we have seen what could be the beginning of the end of one of the key features of the web browser. Mozilla has its own thoughts, but there is little doubt that Mozilla is reconsidering the purpose of the URL bar in future versions of its browsers. In a Mozilla Labs post today, David Regev suggests that the location bar should be replaced with a tool to support more than just one command."

591 comments

  1. Following Google to Stupidity by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gah, what is with Mozilla following Google's every example, no matter how stupid or not? There's a good reason to keep the URL bar - it's a quick and easy way to check for phishing 2 out of 3 times. Hiding the URL bar is just dumb, because now we're reliant on Google or Mozilla or other third-party maintained lists to protect us from phishing, or we have to jump through hoops to check the URL. No, thank you!

    Plus, what is wrong with keeping the URL bar where it is? I use the Omnibar addon and it adds the ability to do all sorts of query commands into the URL bar already. It works well and it's convenient to use, and best of all, I keep my URL bar (albeit it's now a long address bar that incorporates the search bar into it). Why not go that direction? Why follow Google towards stupid design decisions? Just making it look nifty is not a good reason to change something or to remove functionality and features.

    --
    My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
    1. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's because Mozilla is struggling to stay relevant when they are losing market share year after year to Chrome.

    2. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by NervousWreck · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe a smarter move would be integrating Omnibar into firefox by default.

      --
      I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
    3. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by kbitz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If Mozilla is going to start "following Google" then there's no reason for me to use their browser when I could go straight to the source and use Chrome. I use Firefox because I don't like Chrome. There is no reason to start emulating it.

    4. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bmuon · · Score: 1

      This is just an experiment by the community. It doesn't mean Mozilla is going in any direction. Mozilla Labs is a place for breaking the web and learning from the broken pieces. Sometimes, interesting ideas arise, like the Awesome Bar HD (which still needs a lot of work). Other times, they go too far (Home Dash).

      Anyway, Mozilla's motto for Firefox is to keep it being completely customizable, so you'll still be able to have the browser look any way you want, even if they change the standard UI.

    5. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Cthefuture · · Score: 1

      I don't care if they disable it be default as long as there is some officially supported way to turn it back on.

      Many normal users are confused by URL's and the like anyway so removing it might be a good idea as long as "power" users have a way to keep doing what they can do now (unlike GNOME3, Unity, and the other crap that effectively cripples the system for people that know what they are doing).

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    6. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by HermMunster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not about following Google's move (to me). Their efforts seem disingenuous. The URL bar is fine and there's nothing wrong with it. The purpose behind the move? More screen real-estate, or just an effort to confuse the customer?

      It it isn't broken do not fix it. It means that I'll have to put in extra effort on all the machines I repair to find and put back the URL bar for my customers.

      Seriously, they need to rethink their purpose.

      --
      You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
    7. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by The+Moof · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, they ignored the massive backlash about removing the status bar, so what makes you think they'll listen to the masses about the location bar? Mozilla's been making some really questionable design decisions lately, and their response always seems to be "find an add-on to do it." Extensions are nifty and all, but they should be required for what some would consider basic interface functionality.

      There is an extension to make the "add-on" bar act like the old status bar, but it's got some issues (might be FF, might be the add-on).

    8. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Pieroxy · · Score: 0

      The day FF will start up as fast as Chrome, I'll switch back. Never before.

    9. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the idea is to destroy the command line interface at all costs. Look at comments on non tech sites. Try to imagine people that write youtube reviews when they are confronted with a CLI.

      It's all in the effort to make it easy, pretty, and simple. Drop down menus were too hard to use so now we have a ribbon. Now they want to get rid of that confusing nonsensical text at the top of your browser and search bar.

      It will make sharing links much harder, but I imagine they'll have a button for that incorporated at some point as well. If you share it or email it on the website, they can harvest the email address you put in, and perhaps force you to log in and send it for you, thus netting your info and of who you are sending it to. They can't track you if you email it. And if you send it via an on page button, they can track if the recipient used it or ignored it or not by sending a trackable object in the email or message. They could even send an ad along with it!

    10. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      That was my first thought, since I just got a Mozilla Labs update that changed my Firefox AwesomeBar to the Google Chrome EvenMoreAwesomeBar. Firefox is trying to be Chrome to stay relevant.

    11. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by what2123 · · Score: 1

      I agree completely your statement. This is why I won't "upgrade," if you call it that, to 4.x for FF. I'm on 3.6 and don't see any good reason for me to switch. If I could, I would gladly go back to 2.c which was far faster and easier to use. I can't see how using Chrome or the latest version of FF makes it easier for you to do any productive work. Seems like it is all being based on the social media factor. Ha.

    12. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Ephemeriis · · Score: 1

      I use the Omnibar addon and it adds the ability to do all sorts of query commands into the URL bar already. It works well and it's convenient to use, and best of all, I keep my URL bar (albeit it's now a long address bar that incorporates the search bar into it). Why not go that direction?

      Umm...

      David Regev suggests that the location bar should be replaced with a tool to support more than just one command.

      Isn't that exactly what he's suggesting?

      Granted, if you look at the fine article, it isn't exactly a bar so much as a box... But it's the same idea. A multi-function interface element that allows you to enter searches, addresses, get page info, and whatever else.

      I think the observation is that most folks don't actually use the URL bar to type in a URL these days. That's why so many browsers allow you to search directly from the URL bar - because people don't type out URLs, they type out searches. This is just a logical extension of that.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    13. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 0

      The "massive backlash" honestly comes from the noisy minority; and the behavior in Chrome and Firefox is actually pretty spot-on. It does everything the status bar did that I cared about (i.e. everything except displaying "Document Done") without wasting the screen space all the time.

    14. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Lumpy · · Score: 2

      "Many normal users are confused by URL's and the like anyway ".....

      And we all know that it's far easier to hide it than to educate someone or GASP! they take effort to learn.

      This kind of mentality will bring us the car without access to the engine bay and computers that only let you install software from the AppStore(tm)....

      Why are we dumbing things down to cater to the bottom of the pool? What the hell is wrong with society, It's encouraging people to be illiterate and undecuated?

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    15. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It does everything the status bar did that I cared about (i.e. everything except displaying "Document Done") without wasting the screen space all the time.

      Which is great, if you're running Firefox on a phone. On a real PC it looks pretty clunky.

      And removing the URL bar is simply retarded.

    16. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Spy+Handler · · Score: 1

      Gah, what is with Mozilla following Google's every example, no matter how stupid or not?

      They're the Soviet Union to Google's USA.

      Every little thing US military did, from the 5.56mm ammo to the Space Shuttle, the Soviets copied... even the boneheaded moves (such as these two). Their rationale was that "Well if the Americans are doing it, it must be good".

      There was also a bit of Cover Your Ass mentality, similar to "I can't get fired for buying IBM". If I authorize development of new tech, and it fails, I could be sent to the goulags... but if I just copy American shit, I'm safe.

    17. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bhcompy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The day Chrome has true support for NoScript, I'll switch back. Never before.

    18. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Mozilla's been making some really questionable design decisions lately, and their response always seems to be "find an add-on to do it."

      The funny thing is, when the project first started the attitude was "find an add-on" if you wanted something besides basic typical browser functionality. Now, they're just terrified of Chome ... and whatever Chrome does becomes gospel. Hide the "File Edit View" menus ... tabs in the title bar ... remove the status bar. And now that the URL bar is gone ... suddenly it "has to go."

      Grow a pair, Mozilla.

    19. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by demonbug · · Score: 1

      It's because Mozilla is struggling to stay relevant when they are losing market share year after year to Chrome.

      Which, of course, just decreases their relevancy further and faster.

    20. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't use chrome because I assume it will be tougher to block tracking from a web browser from a company whose main business is selling information gained from tracking users.

    21. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are we dumbing things down to cater to the bottom of the pool?

      Because if you don't, someone else will come out with a product that does, and users will switch to that product, thus making 'dumbing down' an inevitability.

    22. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

      What do you measure in? Nanoseconds? How old is your computer that either takes more than a second to load?

    23. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      It sounds to me like Mozilla wants to merge Ubiquity into the URL bar...

    24. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by peragrin · · Score: 5, Informative

      the day chrome fixes it's theming colors, and print system I will switch back.

      Seriously chrome is the only browser not to support page margins. So it is useless for printing out web forms.

      As for theme's when a website requests a new window theme colors default to the original colors.

      Two very simple things chrome does wrong.

      now let me actually delete history on a regular basis and all will be good. I don't need 6 months of browser history saved.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    25. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      Gah, what is with Mozilla following Google's every example, no matter how stupid or not?

      Complacency followed by panic. Two years ago Firefox looked secure, according to statcounter IE had 62% marketshare, Firefox 29% and Opera/Safari/Chrome fought over the last 9% - Firefox was almost 10x bigger than than the third browser and everybody agreed nobody runs IE because it's better so in many ways they felt like #1. All they had to do was convert more IE users and world domination was at hand.

      Then came Chrome:
      May 2009: 2.45%
      May 2010: 8.61%
      May 2010 (est): 19.22%

      Extrapolation is always a dangerous thing but Chrome has been eating almost one full percentage point per month now. One more year like this and Chrome would pass Firefox. And Mozilla's search engine agreement with Google ends in November this year, what's the deal going to be now that Chrome goes toe to toe with Firefox? I doubt they'll get as generous terms this time around. In short, they really feel the competition breathing down their necks now.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    26. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And that doesn't fit Firefox too? Their main source of revenue is from Google searches through their browser.

    27. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cdrguru · · Score: 0

      You miss the point. There are clearly and identifiably two classes of users: knowledgable and those that are using an appliance.

      For the appliance users, taking away the URL entry capability is good. Taking away the ability to install random malware is good. Administering the computer remotely (when needed at all) is good. In short, anything that can be done to make it so people that aren't interested in learning "about" computers only how to basically used one do not have to is good.

      For the minority that is really interested, they can use something else.

    28. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a web developer, I cry for you.

      FF 4 (and 5 and 6) is significantly faster, enables GPU acceleration (granted on "select chipsets"), Web Apps 1 somewhat compat, expose-like feature for grouping, and a slew of features. It's more secure, faster, and enables a richer experience.

      By staying on FF 3.6.* tree, you're saying that upgrading to the latest version of something is really needed. Just like XP users. Guess what, you should always stay current with your software for a multitude of reasons, which I really shouldn't have to explain. Just like IE 9 needs to die, FF 4, Safari 5, Opera 10.10 all need to die.

      You are effectively stopping everyone else from having RIA's, without flash / silverlight, by keeping a non-current web browser.

    29. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      I was a big Firefox fan for seven or eight years, but Firefox 4 is such a dog on older hardware that I finally dumped it for Chrome, and after a bit of a learning curve, I actually don't mind it at all. It still needs a few features, but all in all, it works damned well.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    30. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

      Opera has a useful adress bar, combined with custom search engines:
      "wk stargate" takes me to wikipedia's english entrey on starget,
      "a blackdeathkiller" takes me to my realm's blackdeathkiller wow armory page
      "g santorum" takes me to the very interesting google search on santorum

      plus there's an option to hide it already, and F2 pops up an "enter URL" page.

      I don't see what the fuss is about.

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    31. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by swordgeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Mozilla's motto for Firefox is to keep it being completely customizable..."

      Ah yes. That's why I can turn the status bar back on in FF4, right?

      I appreciate the desire to reduce clutter and give us more browsing space, but the stupid floating URL at the bottom in lieu of a status bar does NOT save space, it just overlaps and obscures content--and I can't turn it off or move it.

      The Mozilla foundation needs to stop screwing around until they take a good hard look at the direction they've been drifting in the last two years.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    32. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      I don't need 6 months of browser history saved.

      Ah, but Google does.

      "Don't be Evil" is a pretty low hurdle to clear, btw.

    33. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by halowolf · · Score: 1

      I use the chrome URL/Search bar, and the Home Page in place of bookmarks and I like that very very much. Bookmarks are fine, except that I'm lazy and they just get into a big mess where I can't find anything. Most places I visit have an easy to remember URL and if something I visit often is hard to get to via the URL bar (I'm talking about you IBM!) I just bookmark it or plain old wait for it to turn up on the Home Page and pin it. I'm fine for change if it can improve things, but right now I enjoy having fast access to the things I want with just a bit of speed typing in a dialog box rather than scanning through lists of bookmarks.

    34. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 1

      Minority it may be, but they're usually the people with better sense and judgement. I didn't trouble myself about the lack of a status bar, even while I was on IE or FF, the only thing I looked for there was the little padlock of the secure line, nothing essential.

      But taking away the URL bar? NO WAY!
      I want to see where I go when clicking a link. I want to see if it redirects me transparently (might mean it's up to naughtiness). I want to mangle the URL if I need to, and I don't want to jump through hoops to get it done. I'll even swallow it if they remove it, but leave an option to put it back in its place, even if it's just a flag. I was pissed enough when they hid the http:// prefix, but since Chrome is pretty much the best browser IMHO, I stayed. If they remove the URL bar altogether, I'm jumping to FF. But if they follow suit, I'll end up back on IE, and I'm sure nobody wants it gaining market share again...

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    35. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by nnull · · Score: 1

      Starting to be pretty common in opensource communities. I think it's time to start forking these projects with these well entrenched developers with stupid ideas who throw out every good idea to implement their bad ideas *cough* Gnome. I'm not liking this direction of someone telling what I need and don't need.

    36. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by fafaforza · · Score: 2

      That's what happens in motorsports, when they air F1 on broadcast tv. The commentators sound like they're speaking for 2nd graders: not commentating on the sport and what's happening, but repeatedly explaining nuances that anyone would have been able to pick up after watching a few races. So if someone can't put in the minimal effort it takes to lean the basics, why should they be pandered to, which would only reinforce their ignorance for everything.

      We're already at the stage where people use an email client for 4 years and have no idea what a subfolder or a filter are, toss up their hands and yell "but it worked yesterday!" and demand something be fixed, like preschoolers.

    37. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      I concur.

      Opera 11 has a partially-hidden URL bar, and it's very annoying. It shows me what site I'm visiting (example: youtube.com) but leaves off other relevant information like the Serial ID of the video.

      Also the URL bar is a quick and easy way to jump to my next site (type amazon.com and go) or do a search ('topless beach' and enter). I cannot imagine why I would want to hide this useful Browser CLI from my view.

      I also agree with the other fellow - stop copying Chrome. I tried the non-google Chromium and didn't like it at all (too many Firefox/Opera features are missing). Let Firefox be firefox and work on improving things that matter - such as a browser than doesn't require 1 gigabyte* of RAM to work.

      *
      * Yes I'm exaggerating. I just get annoyed the FF crawls like a snail on my 1/3 gig laptop, when other browsers operate fine with that limitation.

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    38. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ijakings · · Score: 2

      Firefox 4 is generally better. You can change your UI so that it is the same as FF3.6 also, and its extremely easy to do, since its built right in. The only thing you need a mod to fix is the status bar.

    39. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by BZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're confusing "Mozilla" (like the people who are shipping the Firefox browser) and "Mozilla Labs" (the people whose job it is to brainstorm and come up with ideas, prototype them, and see if they work).

      Some Labs ideas end up in the browser after they've been prototyped and the like. Most don't.

      The only difference between that and what Apple and Google do is that they keep their prototyping work hidden for the most part, so you don't get articles about all the things they're thinking of trying that then don't pan out.

    40. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by fafaforza · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was livid when LCD producers stopped making 4:3 screens, forcing me into a bulbous 15" widescreen behemoth. Now, having forced us into these widescreen laptops, they're bitching that there isn't enough realestate. Well, gee whiz! You think that a widescreen display has a really wide horizontal spread (wasted on an oversized and mostly empty address bar) and less vertical space?

    41. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. You are spewing total bullshit. Reality is the exact opposite of what you are trying to claim it is.

      The URL bar is no menace to the n00b end user. Dangers to the n00b end user are generally hidden in plain sight on websites that seem benign and inert.

      The idea that you have to take the URL bar away because it's "too powerful" and the n00b might hurt themselves with it is beyond absurd.

      For the "I can't be bothered" class of user, the URL bar is either irrelevant and ignored or something that they can use to confirm they aren't being hacked.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    42. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      As a web developer, I cry for you.

      We don't want nor need your tears. FF 4 is ugly and has moronic design decisions. No status bar? really? not hidden, completely gone. Now that the world is trained to look for the padlock for SSL connections, they remove where that item sits and expect people to understand 'Site Identity Button'.

      The explanation for this is patently ridiculous, from here

      When viewing a website, the Site Identity Button will display in one of three colors - gray, blue, or green. Clicking on the Site Identity Button will display security information about the website, with a matching gray, blue, or green "Passport Officer" icon. "

      Seriously? they wonder why they are losing market share?

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    43. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Haedrian · · Score: 1

      As always, there are firefox extensions which do that.

      In this case its called "InstantFox"

    44. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bmuon · · Score: 1

      The floating URL in Firefox does need a little more work to avoid getting in your way, yes. Fortunately Mozilla changed its release cycle for Firefox, so we won't have to wait 2 years for the next update.

    45. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cpu6502 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      >>>Firefox 4 is generally better. You can change your UI so that it is the same as FF3.6 also

      You need to re-read his post. He doesn't care about superficial shit like appearance. He wants a small, lean browser like Firefox 2.5 was. Merely changing FF4 to look like FF3 or FF2 will NOT help him achieve his goal.

      It's kinda ironic that Firefox was split-off from Netscape because Netscape was considered "too bloated" and now it's reached that same level of gigantism itself. It's also ironic that SeaMonkey (formerly netscape) is now less bloated than its child.

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    46. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Teknikal69 · · Score: 1
      Not the only one I refused to upgrade to 4 as well lately I've been using the 3x branch of Palemoon and I'm experimenting with Safari a bit since I had it installed anyway and only recently discovered it had an adblock extension. Firefox's decision to copy chrome put me off it and I've actually been advising people to ditch it lately even if that means giving them Chrome itself.

      I always liked firefox and had been using it since it's early betas but I really don't like thing's like hiding the menu's and url bars in my opinion it just makes browsing much more work.

    47. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 1

      Every little thing US military did, from the 5.56mm ammo to the Space Shuttle, the Soviets copied... even the boneheaded moves (such as these two).

      I remember how the Soviets got the Stinger missile. One lodged in the airframe of a MiG over Vietnam without detonating, and the pilot flew it back home (probably sweating like a whore in confession and crapping himself a few times...). The engineers took it apart, and copied everything. Including the stamped serial numbers on some components...

      I beg to differ on the Shuttle being a boneheaded move, though.

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    48. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by spartus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And with this sentiment, we've come full-circle back to "AOL Keyword: Sports".

    49. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cavreader · · Score: 0

      We can solve or at least slowdown the descent to a 3rd world country by doing something about locking down our boarders. However if you can't succeed and lead a decent life in the US you damn well won't have an easier time any where else. Your whole peasant class BS makes you sound like a loser looking for reasons to explain your own worthlessness.

    50. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      I really want to understand this motivation for increased screen area? I get Google's motivation, they're and advertising company and the more pixels above the line the more advertising they can pop in. I don't get Mozilla's motivation at all, their focus has previously been on usability, making it easy for people to transfer to the browser and use it.

      As an end user, while I want screen area I also want url/search bars, status bars, quick bookmarks and room for key buttons.

      I've already had multiple people contact me looking to downgrade from FF 4

    51. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Pieroxy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have a quad core with 8GB of RAM. Let me tell you that after a cold start, Firefox starts up in SEVERAL seconds, not just one. Chrome is blazingly fast in comparison.
      Plus, whenever a stupid plugin freezes, it's the whole browser that freezes. In Chrome, just the tab.

      Overall, Firefox feels much more responsive and modular, where Firefox feels just monolithic.

      Both consume huge amounts of memory, but that's cheap these days.

    52. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 0

      Firefox 4 is generally better.

      Yeah. It's much better at leaking memory.

      --
      Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    53. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by vlm · · Score: 1

      Maybe a smarter move would be integrating Omnibar into firefox by default.

      That's not how those cats roll. With bookmark sync, instead of adding xmarks by default, they added firefox sync, which is really nice, other than it doesn't work.

      I suspect they'll add something called "firefox-ni-bar" that claims to do waht omnibar does, and looks nice and appears to work for a little while, and then it starts randomly deleting the URL, displaying the previous undeletable URLs, etc.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    54. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cpu6502 · · Score: 0

      >>>There are clearly and identifiably two classes of users: knowledgable and those that are using an appliance.

      Yes but will eventually what will happen is that "computers" will disappear to be replaced by "appliances" that can't do anything but what the remote company lets them do. The knowledgeable users will be left with nothing but these dumb-downed machines.

      As for the Status Bar:

      I miss the little thing that says "100% done" or "document complete" or whatever. It lets me know the webpage has finished downloading, and now I can save it to my hard drive (if I wish).

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    55. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by swordgeek · · Score: 2

      Ah, good. Then we only need to wait six months for them to add another broken 'feature.' It still might be two years before they fix the floating URL, though.
      Ultimately, they're spending too much time on 'reimagining' and not nearly enough on bug fixes and performance. They need a 3.7 release: Keep the 3-series, but work entirely on repairs and speed. Then there needs to be a feature moratorium for at least a year.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    56. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Use vimperator and you get that space back plus gain a bunch of functions. Not for noobs though.

    57. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by 6ULDV8 · · Score: 1

      "It's encouraging people to be illiterate and undecuated?"

      undecuated: adj. Random utterance of an angry old codger during a rant.

      --
      Pull my finger for my public key.
    58. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      As opposed to a company who gets money from Google to make them the default search provider?

    59. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Americium · · Score: 1

      Exactly, Chrome has more space displaying web pages, and only one textbox to use to search. Simplicity wins, so Mozilla needs to address that issue.

      But that doesn't mean Mozilla can't just have an checkbox for 'advanced user' where it would just leave the old layout, status bar, address bar, etc.

    60. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Overall, Firefox feels much more responsive and modular, where Firefox feels just monolithic."

      With all those cpus and memory are you sure you can see a difference between Firefox and Firefox?

    61. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by StuartHankins · · Score: 2

      I also want a status bar in FF, so I use the addon "Status-4-Evar" which adds the status bar. Running 5 beta and the addon still works fine.

    62. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by sheehaje · · Score: 1

      How is following the leader staying relevant? Especially with something this stupid... No URL bar? This is not going to go over well with IT Professionals at all. How am I supposed to easily get to the numerous devices on my private network? What about the hundreds of sites I have on the intranet? How about troubleshooting problems with php, it's quick and easy to glance at the URL bar to see if the right variables are being passed...

      If anything, make the URL bar more accessible, not less.

    63. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by StuartHankins · · Score: 1

      Try the "Status-4-Evar" addon which adds the status bar. It still works fine in FF 5 beta.

    64. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by praxis · · Score: 2

      Perhaps, but this is not a binary state, Firefox generally *is* much easier to configure to protect the user than Chrome and is likely to stay that way.

    65. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ArcherB · · Score: 5, Informative

      Tree-style tabs is what is keeping me on FF. Tabs are nested on the left side of the screen like split file manager window. Tabs opened from another get nested. For whatever reason, there is no such add-on for Chrome and it kills me to have my tabs listed across the top. You can get so many more tabs running vertically than you can horizontally.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    66. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ffejie · · Score: 1

      I'm hanging on to my 4:3 screens for this reason, and it took a lot of tweaking to get my 16:10 laptop to really work well for me. I still can't use all the horizontal space. However, maybe you should try turning your LCD (assuming it's not a laptop) on it's side into portrait view. If my 4:3 dual monitors die, I'm picking up two widescreens and turning them sideways.

      --
      Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
    67. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by hedwards · · Score: 2

      Nice trolling there. You do realize that Firefox 4.x is marked faster than the 3.x series, right? And that the 2.x series had that terrible memory leak to it as well.

      As for the reason to use a recent release, part of it is better standards compliance with recent standards and part of it is that it is really annoying to have to spend a lot of time waiting for the page to load.

    68. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by h4rr4r · · Score: 0

      Why do you want to keep those hardworking folks out?
      I say we trade one of those working folks for one trailer park welfare collector.

      How are you going to lockdown a border that size?
      What is cheap enough and not defeated by a ladder, shovel or other simple tools?

      His point is the rich want to turn the middle class back into peasants, and it sure seems to be working so far.

    69. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by praxis · · Score: 1

      Upward mobility is not something we're best at. Good, but not best.

    70. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by hedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's been my complaint with Firefox lately, they seem to forget that some of us have large monitors and that it's actually a decrease in usability to take away parts of the interface. I've got a 1900x1200 display, I've got no problem having a status bar and a URL bar, I've still got probably 1100 pixels or more of height to work with. If they're so obsessed about being space efficient, perhaps they ought to move those things to the side of the window as horizontal space tends to be poorly utilized anyways. And with the increased focus on 16:9 displays, that's even more significant than it used to be.

    71. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is always opera...

    72. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Yes, but they could have avoided that by just making it optional from the get go. Considering the other crap they're considering for inclusion, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a status bar. Especially given all the folks that use Firefox on their desktop.

    73. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Migraineman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If it makes you feel any better, I'm crying for me too. There are many, many of us who would like you and the rest of the Technology Fetishists to take your "richer experience" and go play somewhere else. I don't want a multimedia "experience" when I'm looking for an owner's manual on the Sears website. I don't want you shoving GPU-assisted targeted advertising at me at every possible juncture.

      The forced upgrade march is also unwelcome, for reasons that should be obvious, but apparently aren't. I've upgraded software tools, only to discover that the new version has abandoned compatibility with an older version, which is a catastrophe if that older version is part of a currently-shipping product or service. My production lifecycles exceed typical software lifecycles by an order of magnitude. XP? Yep, still running that along side of several Win2K machines. You may find that unpalatable, but upgrading to Win7 would break functionality (and has been demonstrated in a sandbox, so that last part isn't just conjecture.)

      As for the URL bar ... "Hey! I was using that!" I use my browser for much more than just surfing the net for pr0n. My local firewall and router have admin interfaces that require a dotted-quad entry in the URL bar. No, I can't just click the "Microsoft Networks" icon and find them ... funny, they're not Microsoft products. Similarly, I can force a SFTP session to my file server by typing into the URL bar. Often times, I'll manually edit the displayd URL to rapidly traverse the directory tree. Just because you find it irrelevant, doesn't mean I do.

    74. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by SerpentMage · · Score: 1

      Ok let me get this straight ok...

      You have a quad core with 8GB of ram. And because FF starts up in several seconds in contrast to Chrome's one second, you use Chrome?

      So keeping the browser open with that type of machine is not an option?

      I hope you can feel my cynicism.... Because sometimes I think Techies focus on the wrong things!!!

      --

      "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
      "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
    75. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I miss the days when innovation was about adding new features not removing them.

    76. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by xerxesVII · · Score: 1

      What in the hell do you use themes for?

      Do you really need a bunch of manga characters or flowers peeking around the edges of your browser?

      --
      "We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
    77. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by mandark1967 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I have a quad core with 8GB of RAM. Let me tell you that after a cold start, Firefox starts up in SEVERAL seconds, not just one. Chrome is blazingly fast in comparison.

      Plus, whenever a stupid plugin freezes, it's the whole browser that freezes. In Chrome, just the tab.

      1 - Optimize your shitty computer so that your programs have the necessary resources to open quickly. FFS my Intel Atom D525 opens up FF4 in 2 - Stop using shitty plugins that aren't coded properly and you won't have frozen plugins. I've never even seen a plugin freeze freezing FF with it.

      Overall, Firefox feels much more responsive and modular, where Firefox feels just monolithic.

      3 - Uhm...you fail the internet.

      Both consume huge amounts of memory, but that's cheap these days.

      4 - 1 outta 4 ain't bad

      --
      Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
    78. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by avandesande · · Score: 1

      I switched for a while and the performance is superior- but the interfaces are so horrible I switched back.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    79. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by poetmatt · · Score: 1

      pretty much my concern as well - security. I don't care about usability, improvements there are always good. However, making it harder to tell what site is linked - that is a giant issue.

    80. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Making it hidden by default doesn't mean you won't be able to change the option and have it always visible again, just like you can switch back to Tabs below the other bars with two clicks, despite the default having been changed to Tabs on top.

    81. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

      no, no, wait! If it ain't broke, your not working hard enough to fix it!

    82. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      Violation of the first rule:

      Keep it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

    83. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 0

      Or you could install one of the extensions that get you the Status bar back. Arguments that "you shouldn't have to install a damn extension to do that" aside, it's still dumb to stay on 3.X over it.

    84. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can solve or at least slowdown the descent to a 3rd world country by doing something about locking down our borders. However if you can't succeed and lead a decent life in the US you damn well won't have an easier time any where else. Your whole peasant class BS makes you sound like a loser looking for reasons to explain your own worthlessness.

      FTFY

    85. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by swordgeek · · Score: 1

      Part of it, I suspect, is a result of the move to widescreen displays on laptops. Modern laptops typically have 900 or 1050 pixels vertically, and are thus the space is highly sought-after.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    86. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by PwnzerDragoon · · Score: 1

      There's NotScripts. It's not quite as good as NoScript, but it gets the job done and I've never had any problems with it. You could also use NotScripts for Chrome OS if you don't want to much around with setting a password when you install it.

    87. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by aix+tom · · Score: 2

      As a user, developer and administrator myself I feel like I want to punch everybody talking about a "richer experience".

      Then again, my job is in a sector that needs software to just get fracking things done without having to re-educate users that react with panic to every minor change. So far Firefox was nice in that regard, but recently they are blowing it.

      I don't have time to tweak new versions every six month to fit into existing workflows.

    88. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by CTU · · Score: 0

      Plus, whenever a stupid plugin freezes, it's the whole browser that freezes. In Chrome, just the tab.

      that is the only chrome feature I would use. I like the idea of just one tab freezing and not every tab I have open.

      I use FF because it is not Chrome...soon I might have to ether live with an outdated browser or learn to use Chrome...what would be the point of using FF over chrome if the are the same darn browser?

    89. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cavreader · · Score: 0

      We can just the Israelis to give us the plans for creating an effective border barrier. I have seen that wall in person and I don't think anything short of a nuke could breach it. Or we could just enforce our current immigration laws starting with the businesses who rely on basically slave labor rates. There is no problem with legal immigration and I don't support a big hunt for exisitng illegal aliens to take place either. That doesn't mean I am against illiegal aliens who get found out by the authorities. I also believe there can be cases where automatic deportation is not warranted under certain conditions but the wholesale run on the border should be stopped. "The rich want to turn the middle class into peasants?" With that loser attitude you might as well go down to welfare office now to avoid the rush. That will give you a lot of time to make posters and attend rallies and shout slogans so you can prevent this tragedy. Or you could try being a productive citizen who takes control of his own life and someone who takes the blame for your own failures instead of blaming someone else for all your troubles.

    90. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      Interesting.

      You know..aside from those here on Slashdot....I've yet to meet a single soul to this point in time, that has ever used Chrome, much less installed it.

      Most lay people (non-tech) that I know of, haven't even heard of it...heck, many are just now hearing about something called firefox and asking me what that is all about.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    91. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      It doesn't feel faster, it feels a lot slower to me. I got upgraded at work, and FF4 is the first time in ages I've actually had "gee, that's taking a long time to load" moments, with long pauses of blank pages and the spinning little icon at the top of the tab. Some of the issue may *be* tabs, which I really loathe and which I promptly disabled in earlier versions but can't figure out how to hide effectively in FF4. Since I can't get them disabled I've been trying to learn to use them, but every time one loads it feels much slower than my old FF3 ever did.

    92. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As I always said: They are not leaders, but followers. Which, by definition, means they always degrade themselves to the second position, even when being in the first. Like right now.

      Th psychological reason for this, is the inferiority complex that most geeks got trained to in school, by being bullied by the strong sports guy, etc.
      So they took a role of the follower. And trying too hard, to be accepted and loved, made it even worse.

      The interesting and sad thing is, that not only were we in fact superior to those bullies all along, no we can, at any time, simply decide that now we're not followers but leaders anymore.
      It takes some time to adapt, but when the start is made, not much can stop it from going all the way.

      Honestly, if nothing would stop me from using Firefox, for the many plug-ins I can't live without, a lack of URL bar and status bar (what was axed the last time), would definitely turn me around.

      What a group of pathetic losers... that could have been impressive innovators.

      And all just to be loved by the lower end of the Gaussian curve. The loudest and dumbest part. The idiots and asshats. Who will forever hate them anyway. For making life so hard, by them having to breathe, eat, shit, and use a computer... all by themselves *gasp*.

      FOREVER ALONE

    93. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      I've not used Seamonkey since it was called the Mozilla Suite and Firefox was Firebird, but I don't get what exactly makes it faster than Firefox.

      Most of the 'features' in Firefox are in fact in Gecko, which Seamonkey also uses. The rest is basically the UI, which don't affect that performance noticeably.

      Why exactly is Firefox "bloated" and Seamonkey isn't?

    94. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but I won't touch anything with "4-Evar" in its name. Ever.

    95. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      I think my machines must be special, they never seem to suffer from all those memory leaks attribute to Firefox. I keep it open (using suspension) for weeks and it never uses more than 500MB.

      Unless you mean that it uses more memory, but that's not a leak. Leaking is unclaimed memory which grows consistently.

    96. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Ah yes. That's why I can turn the status bar back on in FF4, right?

      Yes, you can, you just use that customization feature called "Addons".

    97. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      And yet Palestinians with only shovels do breach it.
      If you want to slow down illegal immigration you will need to go after those who employ them. Oh wait, they are the ones profiting from low wages and using that money to buy politicians.

      I don't have any troubles, I make quite a comfortable living. That does nothing to change reality. The reality the middle class is shrinking, real wages are not growing, and the middle class is being attacked on both ends. I might be able to keep myself comfortable, but it does not mean I want to see others suffer.

    98. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Fun fact: the US can't become a third-world country because those were the countries not aligned with neither the US nor the USSR during the cold war.

    99. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First the came for the status bar....I said nothing.
      Then they came for the URL bar....I said nothing.
      Next they came for me and there was no one left to speak... ;-P

      Yes, the design to allow extensions is a cardinal feature of FF - extensibility. But, how far down the road do we take it?

      Are back buttons next? after all mouse gestures work just fine. How about 'refresh'? you can just back and reload the page instead. Properties? bah, install an extension if you want to actually configure the application.

      If there are 2 basic units of functionality in a 'browser' they are the URL bar and the status bar. (the latter is pretty damned standard in a lot (most?) applications. Knowing the 'status' is something most people at some point want to show. I'm not saying force it to display. It previously could be easily hidden or shown. Why take the removal step? just makes no sense.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    100. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by TheLink · · Score: 2

      now let me actually delete history on a regular basis and all will be good. I don't need 6 months of browser history saved.

      Press ctrl-shift-del and select what you want to delete, then click clear browsing data?

      I personally prefer mozilla because of:
      1) noscript
      2) adblock plus
      3) treestyle tab
      4) certificate patrol

      At work I also have a mozilla instance with firebug and firecookie. But at work I also use chrome and IE ;).

      --
    101. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by causality · · Score: 2

      That's what happens in motorsports, when they air F1 on broadcast tv. The commentators sound like they're speaking for 2nd graders: not commentating on the sport and what's happening, but repeatedly explaining nuances that anyone would have been able to pick up after watching a few races. So if someone can't put in the minimal effort it takes to lean the basics, why should they be pandered to, which would only reinforce their ignorance for everything.

      We're already at the stage where people use an email client for 4 years and have no idea what a subfolder or a filter are, toss up their hands and yell "but it worked yesterday!" and demand something be fixed, like preschoolers.

      It's interesting that in this one thread what the phenomenon actually means and represents is appreciated. You said it: immature like pre-schoolers. Not self-sufficient and capable of self-education like a proper adult. Balking at the slightest effort or inconvenience just like a spoiled child.

      Most of the time I catch flak for pointing out that there's something wrong with adults acting this way. So be it, that's hasn't and won't stop me. Still, it's nice to see a thread where common sense is openly acknowledged with no apology.

      The biggest single problem of the USA is emotional immaturity. It's being deliberately encouraged by treating adults like children who need to be protected from themselves.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    102. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Don't ask me, I use Vimperator (which has its own status bar) and hide the menu and navigation bars anyway, so I don't really care.

    103. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cavreader · · Score: 1

      The Palestinians are not breeching the wall I am referring to. They dig tunnels in other areas closer to the other borders which are not protected by this beast of a wall. I don't know if you can find any pictures online but that wall looks like a combination of the Great Wall of China, the Maginot Line, and outer walls of a super max prison. It was built for the sole purpose of preventing attacks against their major population centers and it has fulfilled that objective.

    104. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by nevermore94 · · Score: 2

      A big part of the perceived slowness depending on the pages you are loading is that tables are no longer displayed as they are loading, but not until they are done due to a change made for html5. By disabling it, tables will display instantly again.

      Go into about:config and set:
      html5.parser.enable=false

      --
      Nevermore.
    105. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      You don't even need an extension to do that.

      Right click on the search box, select "Enter a keyword for this search" and badda-bing.

      What does the extension do?

    106. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Firefox 4 on my tablet is already completely unusable because there just aren't any buttons or bars on the thing. I've installed it and uninstalled it twice now, hoping that it would work for me.

      The default browser is almost as bad, but at least there is a dropdown on the current tab which brings the address bar back.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    107. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Risen888 · · Score: 0

      +1

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    108. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by DarkXale · · Score: 1

      Its even worse than that usually, especially on netbooks. Standard Firefox 3 configuration and having 1/3rd of the vertical available space used for interface elements (OS & Browser itself) was sadly not uncommon. Then when you add in the toolbar-fox plague (You know the same thing IE used to have problems with?) and up to half the screen is gone, just like that.

    109. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, now, you Persian Grand Master of Funk, aesthetics are important to some people.

    110. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Solandri · · Score: 1

      Most of my extensions made it to the add-on bar so that's been ok. The main problem I've been seeing from the missing status bar is that the link URL preview now floats on top of the bottom of the web page. This is fine, unless the link itself is in that bottom portion of the web page. Then that section of the screen starts flashing as the bottom of the page and the link URL preview both try to overwrite each other. Worse yet, clicking on the link does not work - your mouse click gets intercepted by the URL preview. That breaks a fundamental rule of UI - that clicking on a hyperlink should work the same no matter where the link is displayed. You have to first scroll the page up a bit so the link is clear of the URL preview area, then click on it.

    111. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by sumdumass · · Score: 1, Interesting

      He did say after a cold start. Perhaps he's one of those idiots who turn their computers off when not using them to save on energy and GHG emissions and the planet and so on.

      Then again, he could be a troll just complaining just to complain as it would appear if we ignored the cold boot part of the complaint.

    112. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by hedwards · · Score: 2

      I miss the days when web developers would focus on perceived load time. It irritates me a great deal that I often times have to wait for a page to fully load before I read the text. Granted it's not easy taking multiple sources and creating a page, but it's really irritating for the viewer to have to wait for an ad to load for the lay out to look right.

    113. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by hedwards · · Score: 1

      You really have to compare the same site. I was shocked at how slow the 3.x series was when I was briefly using somebody else's computer a while back. That was when Firefox4 was still in beta.

      Plus, people often times blame the browser for what is really the problem of the extensions or the ISP.

    114. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      In response to Number 1:

      Yes, I agree entirely. I mean why should he forgo all the technical data, learning, tooling around, and tweaking just keep one program running because some other program doesn't act in that bad way. I miss the good old days when you knew how much fun you were having by how many times you crashed windows in a session.

      He needs to suffer through the pain of figuring everything out and making it work how he wants it instead of using a program that's already there.

      In response to number 2:
      I think it's obvious in his rant that he was complaining about FF and praising Chrome like a little fanboy. It's not an internet fail unless you missed that.

      Oh. /end sarcasm tags.

    115. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by stretch0611 · · Score: 1

      The "massive backlash" honestly comes from the noisy minority;

      Are you just calling it a minority because you do not agree with it? I am still using FF 3.6 because I use the status bar a lot and I don't want to be without it and the addon does not serve my needs.

      What gets me going is that they are removing the bars without giving users the choice, when prior versions you could always turn them off. While typing this right now (in 3.6) I can go to the view menu and unclick "Status Bar" or View >> Toolbars and unclick "Navigation ToolBar" which would effectively remove the status bar and/or url toolbar from the display. I have the choice now, removing my choice will only annoy me.

      Maybe instead of listening to some UI person with his head up his a$$, maybe they should eliminate the feature and performance bloat. I thought the point of add-ons was to provide an open architecture to allow me to do things the browser didn't --- when did add-ons become required in order to return the browser to the way I liked it before?

      --
      Looking for a job?
      Want your resume written professionally?
      DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
    116. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fork firefox

    117. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Typical OSS zealot response: It's open source, add it yourself if you don't like it.

    118. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by COMON$ · · Score: 1
      Did you not read TFA? While the summary is trolling, the actual change Mozilla is suggesting is a space that could be used for more than just url's. Imagine if the url bar did more, what if it parsed regular expressions as well? What if it allowed ping, or tracert, or nslookup? The regular user would never know, but the tech user would have a very very useful piece of functionality included.

      I have always thought the url bar was a waste of real estate as it stands, that could be made much more useful. Sure I still want to be able to enter an IP or a dns address, but being able to parse ftp and ssh commands would be awesome.

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    119. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by krazy1 · · Score: 1

      Firefox 3.6.17 will be the last version of Firefox I will be using, as soon as Mozilla stop supporting that I will be going to Opera. Sick of this dumbing down the UI crap.

    120. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Then you are either surrounded by IT developers who hate chrome or idiots who do not update their computers or install software that didn't come with it.

      Chome is bundled in a bunch of software, some of which is necessary to view certain web pages. Updating some of this software can lead to steal installs of chrome if you are not paying attention to catch it. I've seen it bundled with PFD viewers, flash players, online virus scanning software, regular virus scanning software, Spyware removal programs, chat programs, and a lot of other things that normal people use in the interweb.

      Now, because this is installed doesn't mean the users know it is or what it does. But I've seen loads of computers (as that's what I do) with chrome installed because something installed it.

    121. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by laddiebuck · · Score: 1

      Just as an anecdote: I'm really touchy about interfaces and them staying exactly the same so I can keep productive (that's mostly why I use GNU screen all the time), and I thought I'd hate the removal of the status bar, but it's actually fine. When I need to check a link URL and hover over it, my eyes automatically pop to the lower left-hand corner of the browser and the URL is there. I never cared about the progress bar, and I just put my addon buttons at the top, to the right of the URL bar. (The first row in my browser is menu items, URL bar, and addon buttons; the next row are bookmark bar icons/folders).

    122. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by radtea · · Score: 1

      Why are we dumbing things down to cater to the bottom of the pool? What the hell is wrong with society, It's encouraging people to be illiterate and undecuated?

      Humans are convenience-seeking. The whole process of technology development is driven by convenience-seeking. Hardly anyone knows how to use a manual spark advance on a car anymore, or a manual choke and even a manual transmission. Why learn those skills when we can get the machine to take care of them automatically?

      You probably don't know how to crack-start a car, do you? There's a special trick to it to avoid breaking your wrist in the event of a backfire (which was sufficiently common that the resulting break pattern actually had the medical name of "chauffeur's fracture").

      You use technology every single day that is the direct result of the process of "dumbing down" that you're decrying. We all do. The problem is, as geeks, we like to see the bones of the system exposed. We like the freedom to tinker and create and fix. We inevitably lose all that as the very process that motivated the creators of the technology continues to refine it.

      This is true on all levels, both within a technological area and across time when looking at different technologies that solve the same problem. Cars are vastly easier to operate than horses. Power boats are vastly easier to operate than sail boats or canoes or kayaks. The most complex smart phone is vastly easier to operate than a telegraph. Guns are easier to use than bows or swords. I'm sure various types of stone tool in use 10,000 years ago were more convenient in some sense than their predecessors from 100,000 years ago.

      So far from decrying this tendency toward convenience-seeking, we should embrace it and accept it, and always be looking to keep ahead of the curve of boring, convenient technology. The Web itself grew this way: however awkward early browsers were to use they gave more convenient access to information than books and periodicals.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    123. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 1

      I know what a memory leak is. Firefox 4 leaks horribly, at least on Linux/X86_64.

      --
      Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    124. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "And with the increased focus on 16:9 displays, that's even more significant than it used to be."

      Huh? What does "increased focus" mean? We are FORCED to buy 16:9 displays because there are no other choices!

      Just as the dickwads behind this latest stupid idea are going to FORCE you to live without a URL bar. Of course, if they gave you a choice, most of us would choose to keep the URL bar, and these latte sipping tossers would have to admit they were wrong, and we can't allow that, can we! Much better to ruin the user experience of millions of people.

      This is what I call 'the programmers' tyranny'. Far too many idiots without the slightest hint of empathy become programmers, then ruin the experience of millions of people, waste millions of hours of people's time every DAY, due to bad design, and think they are the bees' knees because they have so much 'power' over everybody else.

    125. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      I accidentally installed it because I either missed unchecking an "install chrome" box on some piece of software I was installing, or it just ignored me. That sort of clandestine installing makes Chrome lose several million points in my book, so it will probably never get evaluated by me. I did run it once just to look at it before uninstalling. It didn't look remotely worth switching browsers. But now that Firefox 4.0 is out and is much more sucky than 3.5, maybe I need to re-evaluate.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    126. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      No, I'm calling it a minority because it's 50,000 users out of 50,000,000 users. Just like the XBox "Hardcore Gamer" noisy minority, or the Femenist noisy minority, etc etc. Gay Pride Parades embarrass most gay people I've met, and they wish to not be associated with people who are basically portraying homosexuality as ancient greek art (i.e. wandering around nearly-naked, having sex with everything that moves, etc) and shouting loudly and irritatingly at people just because they can (attention-seeking retards).

      Every minority has an even smaller noisy minority. Usually the noisy people are of the noisy minority. That's why Vista didn't take off: the very visible and very much real majority didn't care for it, and it had shitty sales numbers. ME had the same problem. Nobody was demanding downgrades from Windows XP.

    127. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by utoddl · · Score: 1

      Let's quit calling them "widescreen displays" and start calling them what they are: shortscreen displays.

    128. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps the douchebag behind this decision would have the balls to show his face, show us who he is, and tell us WHY he thinks HE should be deciding this for us. Then we can all laugh in his face and tell him what an idiot he is, maybe then he'll start listening to his users.

    129. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by HaZardman27 · · Score: 1

      Do you only associate with luddites? According to this, Chrome claims over 14% of the browser market, and Firefox over 28%. I'm guessing "techies" don't count for over 14% of internet users, and definitely not over 28%.

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
    130. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by HaZardman27 · · Score: 1

      From what I've seen of Chrome's removal of the URL bar, there will be several layouts to chose from, some of which do not hide the URL bar. I would hope Firefox will be the same way.

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
    131. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      That's just lack of user control over the elements on their browser. I've had firefox configured like the following for since FF1:

      System bar
      File menu | Browser Buttons | Search | URL bar | Extension buttons
      Quick Bookmarks
      Tabs
      Screen area
      Status bar

      All other toolbars are activated only when needed. That way the entire UI takes up 125px (estimate, 25px of height per element, 5 elements) without any loss of functionality or incredibly annoying popovers.

    132. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cayenne8 · · Score: 0

      He did say after a cold start. Perhaps he's one of those idiots who turn their computers off when not using them to save on energy and GHG emissions and the planet and so on.

      People actually do that and worry about that stuff?

      Wow...about the only time the many computers in my house get turned off...is at a power failure, or when I move.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    133. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by nevermore94 · · Score: 1

      Although I generally agree with you, I haven't actually seen one of these ad things in years:
      Get: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

      --
      Nevermore.
    134. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      "You probably don't know how to crack-start a car, do you?"

      "The problem is, as geeks, we like to see the bones of the system exposed. We like the freedom to tinker and create and fix."

      You treat those as if exposing the bones of something made that thing less convenient, when nearly on every case it is the other way around. Let me repeat a bit: "We like the freedom to tinker and create and fix." that is so because a system that actualy works is more convenient than one that doesn't. We seek convenience on all our choices, we expect to fix a system that isn't working, instead of having to reinstall everything or, the bigest inconvenience possible, losing data; we want our software to not authomaticaly destroy our work just because it guesses we'd want to, we want to be able to use the best tools for a job, and we want our browser to not hiding from us what it is doing, so we can know if it is safe.

    135. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Chome is bundled in a bunch of software...

      Can you cite some specific examples?

      I'm talking mostly at the workplace, where most people (I had admin on my machines) don't have admin and can't install software on a whim.

      Most non-tech people I have known of...don't seem to install a bunch of random software off the net, no...you're right there.

      But I know other friends that are at least semi-tech..and they seem happy with FF and IE...and Safari for the ones with a mac.

      Honestly though...I've never heard of software that includes a browser on it's own install. That's interesting.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    136. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by marcosdumay · · Score: 2

      "One more year like this and Chrome would pass Firefox."

      Yep, one more year taking away everything FF has that Chrome doesn't and people may stop bothering with FF.

    137. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree and that is why i still use my Samsung 4:3 LCD as my primary screen even though my 15 in laptop screen looks better.
      I need vertical real estate for what i do not horizontal ... it drives me nuts.

    138. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think that a widescreen display has a really wide horizontal spread (wasted on an oversized and mostly empty address bar) and less vertical space?

      Umm, no. I think a widescreen has more horizontal spread and the same amount of vertical space as we had before.

      My old 4:3 monitor (okay, it's actually 5:4) has 1024 vertical pixels. My new widescreen monitor has 1050 vertical pixels. I lost nothing, and gained the ability to see most of a second document in the background.

      Unless you're "upgrading" from a high-end 4:3 to a low-end widescreen, you won't lose any pixels. And if you did, you have only yourself to blame for cheaping out.

    139. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      It's just about every site, I'd say. There's more of a delay at work using FF4 than there is at home using FF3. And my work connection is significantly faster than my home connection. Yeah, occasionally at home the page will hang or a large file is slower because of the slower download speed, but I can tell when it's network connection problems. For general clicking from one page to the next or staring at a completely empty tab just waiting for *something* to happen, FF4 leaves me feeling impatient a lot more than 3 ever did.

      There may be something to nevermore's suggestion about the HTML5 table loading mechanism, and I'll give that a shot.

    140. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      err the Soviets and WP forces went to intermediate cartridge assault rifles long before the USA did - weather they nicked the design from the Ak47 from the StG 44 or not is the actual question

    141. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by quanticle · · Score: 1

      This is why you purchase a display that's capable of rotation. There's nothing like seeing a massive document fit on one 19" screen rotated to be portrait instead of landscape.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    142. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by whereiswaldo · · Score: 2

      My pet peeve about a lot of apps is no application should assume it has access to all the system's RAM. Just because I have 4 GB RAM, doesn't mean a browser, etc... should use it all. I do run other programs simultaneously, ya know.

    143. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      FTFY
      Maybe they were really referring to boarders. ie, the people that already made it across. :)

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    144. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      I accidentally installed it because I either missed unchecking an "install chrome" box on some piece of software I was installing

      Granted, I've not installed a lot of different windows software lately.....but what software are you installing that wants to also install a browser with it???

      Can you cite some specific software packages that want to install a browser (chrome) specifically? This is something new to me...

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    145. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Brucelet · · Score: 1

      Yeah. I made the switch to Chrome recently when I realized that Firefox was turning into it anyway.

    146. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I do not have a complete list of software, but from memory, it seems that chrome is bundled with flash, Avast anti-virus, Verizon and ATT, time warners connectivity pack that needs to be installed on most DSL and cable internet setups unless you want a big hassle, Adaware, "any video converter", Real player, quite a few of the online games(board type games aimed at bored adults more then kids), And I'm sure there are more.

      I know I missed a lot in there. Most of the time when I see it installed, it's because it's already there so I don't automatically think about where it came from. And some of those will include the browser install if a program update is needed through the update services on the program. Avast got me personally on this. The only thing I could figure out was the update that happened overnight. Chrome was just there the next day.

    147. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but they could have avoided that by just making it optional from the get go.

      But that would be reverting to Netscape Communicator 4, or IE 4, where the URL bar wasn't visible at all. Especially in Popups, where a random advert site tries their scam-de-jour, and you can't tell advert site is doing that.

    148. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      Oooops, the first one was meant to be Chrome. As you have guessed I'm sure ;-)

    149. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      I didn't say it was my only computer. All my other computers (laptop at work, kid's computer, wife's eeepc) are much slower than mine. And on all of them I use Chrome because it really makes a difference. Like, when you close a tab, you reclaim memory, whereas in FF it doesn't (at least it didn't in FF3.6).

      Hence, I'm now used to Chrome. Hence, I use Chrome on my main computer.

    150. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Oh for the love of... Does noone have sufficient skepticism of Slashdot summaries to actually read the article, watching for blatant editor fabrications?

      According to the article, the person making this comment-- on a blog, no less-- doesnt work at mozilla, and isnt even a mozilla dev-- he is an extension author. Real telling stuff here.

      And his comment doesnt even say he is in favor of removing a mechanism for viewing current URL:

      The location bar has to go. It has many problems. ...Moreover, it’s modal: it has a mode for displaying the current page’s location and a mode for entering your next destination. It’s not always immediately obvious which mode you’re in and what the current text is indicating, and switching modes is not easy either.....We need to separate the location bar’s two modes and remove the location bar as we know it.

      That could be taken any number of ways; perhaps he is suggesting a redesign, not a removal.

      And again, the guy doesnt even have any say at mozilla, the extent of his influence is that, as an extension author, he has a spot on the Mozilla Labs blogs. Whoop-die-do.

    151. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      Can you cite some specific software packages that want to install a browser (chrome) specifically? This is something new to me...

      I can't but I sure have seen a Chrome checkbox ticked by default a couple of times when installing random stuff.

    152. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ChienAndalu · · Score: 1

      The serial id is relevant for probably less than 1% of web users. Even as a slashdot user, I really don't need to see the url at the moment. I only use the bar when I want to go to a different site.

    153. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Theyre not. This guy doesnt work at Mozilla, nor have any say-- he is (to quote the post) "community member, David Regev — a philosopher, Firefox enthusiast, and an aspiring interaction designer."

      Such a compelling, non-sensationalist story, right?

    154. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      "They" is one guy who doesnt have any relationship with mozilla except that he produces an extension and uses firefox.

      Its really disheartening to see so many knee-jerk reactions to a made-up story.

    155. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

      Yes, because software developers are totally to blame for the shift to widescreen displays.

    156. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Well, they ignored the massive backlash about removing the status bar

      Firefox v4.0.1: Rightclick the menubar, click "add-on bar". Problem solved.

      And "massive backlash"? I have a lot of friends and family who use firefox-- version 4.0-- and not once have I heard a frustrated "arrrrggh, where is my stinking status bar". Mostly, they seem to care more about whats on the webpage, than on what browser theyre using.

      Enough with the hyperbole, they could make the back button bright pink and rename the tools menu to "WRENCH STORED HERE" and 90% of users wouldnt care.

    157. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Spy+Handler · · Score: 1

      right, soviets went to the 7.62x39 intermediate cartridge right after WW2. Then in Vietnam they noticed Americans using a different kind of intermediate cartridge (5.56mm NATO, tiny bullet, higher velocity) and they decided to abandon their proven 7.62 and make their own version of the NATO (in 5.45mm)... notice how they don't use the AK-47 anymore, they use the AK-74 chambered in 5.45 instead.

    158. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Golddess · · Score: 1

      I wasn't aware that they made laptops where the screen could be rotated like that. :P

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
    159. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by gpuk · · Score: 2

      Avast, Ad-aware and Google Earth all come with chrome (or did when I last installed them)

    160. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by swillden · · Score: 1

      There's a good reason to keep the URL bar - it's a quick and easy way to check for phishing 2 out of 3 times.

      For you it does. And for me. For my mom? Not so much. Not only do most non-technical users never even look at the location to check for phishing, but the common phishing trick of mangling the URL so that a naive examination makes it look sorta like it's the right URL nearly always fools most people.

      What works better is to have the browser actively checking to see if the site is a known phishing site, or if the link uses any of the phishing URL-mangling tweaks. Is that perfect? No. For technical users, who are capable of understanding the URL and noticing the problems -- and who pay attention -- it's perhaps not even as good. But such users are a tiny fraction of the userbase, and a solution that protects the whole population from most phishing attacks, even if if fails completely some of the time, will stop vastly more attacks than a 100% effective solution that only works for a few people.

      Of course, there's nothing preventing the application of both active anti-phishing countermeasures AND the URL bar, but the fact is that the URL bar provides little, if any, useful anti-phishing service for the vast majority of users.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    161. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

      > LCD producers stopped making 4:3 screens, forcing me into a bulbous 15" widescreen

      What do you think the term "bulbous" means?

      Because it makes no sense whatsoever in that sentence.

    162. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      So does the average Joe get to website by typing words in the search bar and letting the search tell him which site he thinks he is looking for? I am just asking because I don't know anybody that does that. That is incredibly bad for the longevity of your computer. What if they misspell "microsoft windows critical update" and get routed to some site that uses commonly misspelled keywords and masks itself as an official download site?
      I mean, sure I use Google (plus some common sense) from time to time to try to find a site, but at least 80% of the time, I am either typing a URL or clicking a bookmark.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    163. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, you tell 'em! Mozilla should stop making wide screen laptops and monitors and go back to making 4:3 screens.

      It's just like a non-hardware company to not make the hardware you like.

    164. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by udoschuermann · · Score: 1

      I upgraded to a beta of Firefox 5 a few days ago, noticed that the URL no longer included the protocol, and went back immediately to Firefox 4.

      If I could have restored that feature, fine, but it looks like Mozilla is trying to force feed me their stupid decisions, and I shall not be a willing participant in that kind of abuse.

      --
      --Udo.
    165. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2

      Something I'll never understand: people's obsession to be everything to all people. It doesn't work with cars, it doesn't work in politics, and it doesn't work in software projects. What's wrong with being the browser for the computer literate? The extensible browser? Those are all things you can design into a product. You can't design something to be "the browser with 100% market share". Any attempts to do so will be met by total failure.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    166. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by RobbieThe1st · · Score: 1

      This may be the symptom, but the actual HTML page should loak effectively instantly, what with it being just a couple of KB.
      The real problem is what's *in* the tables -- Inline JS ad-code mainly. Because this is at another, usually slower site, it's always slowed things down for me. Enabling Noscript for 3rd-party JS literally makes pages 10x faster for me.

    167. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Mozilla dropped the ball with Firefox 4. Supposedly, Firefox 5 (or 6?) will have site-specific features for websites like Facebook and Twitter that was once handled by various extensions. It's becoming too bloated and it's no longer the browser people look to for innovative features. The only thing that's keeping Google Chrome from burying Firefox is a robust extension API support, and that's already in the works.

      I still use Firefox 4 but only because of key extensions like Firebug, Tamper Data, and a few other tools.

    168. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by dev.null.matt · · Score: 1

      But it's hard to type when I "rotate the display" on my laptop.

      This whole screen real estate issue is really the worst on laptops, at least in my experience.

    169. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefox v4.0.1: Rightclick the menubar, click "add-on bar". Problem solved.

      Did you know that when you do that, then hover over a link, the URL is displayed ABOVE the add-on bar, not on top of it. It's pretty much broken, and MORE space-consuming than FF 3.x.

    170. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by GooberToo · · Score: 1

      I wish I could care about start up time. I start my browser a couple times per month - at most. The extra couple of seconds one way or the other is absolutely meaningless, even accumulated over the span of a year.

      You need a hobby.

    171. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by virtuosonic · · Score: 0

      if this continues i'll fork mozilla 3.6

      --
      http://agender.sourceforge.net/ get a free schedule tool
    172. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      There is an addon to fix that trivially. This is what extensions are for.

    173. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by lennier · · Score: 1

      > LCD producers stopped making 4:3 screens, forcing me into a bulbous 15" widescreen

      What do you think the term "bulbous" means?

      Because it makes no sense whatsoever in that sentence.

      It's not just bulbous, it's positively gibbous, and possibly squamous as well.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    174. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by steelfood · · Score: 1

      I don't know about the wisdom fo removing the URL bar outright, but there are definitely interface and usability issues with it, and it can be something better and more useful than just something that shows the current page's URL (and it's sometimes misleading at that too). After all, you don't need an editable text box just to show the URL of the page you're visiting.

      From an interface standpoint, the URL bar looks as if it were something that applies to all of the tabs. What they could do to clean up the interface is switch the tab and the url bar around, so that each tab would appear to have its own url bar. I have the same objections to the navigation/reload/stop/home buttons.

      In terms of functionality, the URL bar only shows URLs, which is a waste of space when there are other places (like a status bar) that would fit that purpose. In fact, a great anti-phishing device would be to display in the status bar the URL of the part of the page the cursor is hovering over. You can't really do this on the URL bar because that's supposed to be static until you type something in or click on a link, but the status bar changes depending on what you hover over.

      But I digress. I'd like to see more functionality integrated into the URL bar. They should make it more closely resemble a CLI, where if somebody types in "google abc" or something of that sort, it would search for "abc" using Google. "help" would launch help (like F1). "get http://something.com/foobar.zip" would download foobar.zip from something.com. "bookmark" would bookmark the page. And in the way Excel behaves when typing in functions, there could be a toggle-able auto-complete command feature.

      People like big buttons and fancy menus, and those should not be removed outright (they should be hide-able). But I think a lot of people would enjoy the ability to do everything with a few strokes of the keyboard.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    175. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by jordan_robot · · Score: 1

      ...they added firefox sync, which is really nice, other than it doesn't work.

      Please expound on this. I have no trouble using firefox's sync across over 5 computers, running debian, os x, and windows 7.

      Or I could just sum it up with a [citation needed].

    176. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by TWX · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't want tree-style tabs, but what I could go for is a tab system similar to what Microsoft used in dialog boxes that had two or more rows of tabs, but then take the entire assemblage and turn it 90 and put it on the left or the right side. On top of that I'd probably put a URL box or bar or some other method to get a field to type a URL into. Or, put the URL there and use a smaller font. Put an autohide searchbox in the upper right, and have it clickable for searching the web via engine of one's choice or for searching the page that one is on. Do the same thing at the upper left for forward/back/reload/stop/history, where it autohides.

      With the advent of 16:9, add-on toolbars at the top really need to go away. Put them on the side if you feel that you have to have the whole toolbar, so that the page doesn't end up this little thing only half-visible.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    177. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

      This comment makes me wish H.P. Lovecraft had been around long enough to start reviewing video games and gadgets.

    178. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by starofale · · Score: 2

      what would be the point of using FF over chrome if the are the same darn browser?

      One of them doesn't track you.

      Also, work is underway on Electrolysis - splitting Firefox into separate processes

    179. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by vlueboy · · Score: 1

      It's obvious that Mozilla wants to get on Google's good side. They are making tons of money from having partnered with them to direct search bar quieries to google. Mozilla's money people must have realized that the more URLs they force-redirect and the earlier they vow to remove raw (Google-less) browsing, the more revenue and long-term partnerships they'll forge with Google: Collusion at its best

      Google is scared that people will remain on their portal for less, and they're trying to make everything redirect go to their site. Each search firefox search opens up a whole new webpage and loads all of google's javascript trinkets and trackers. Rockmelt's implementation actually does things right: skip sidebar, disable keyboard navigation AND ADS, and just load the clicked links --superfast.

      I stopped believing in my personal "relationship" with Mozilla since the Firefox's awesomebar in 3.0, and further, vowed to completely *avoid* 4.0 after more transgressions and questionable additions and release cycles have been announced, It will get harder to find a browser that is free of this corporate attraction to shininess and high revenue since the only other mainstream alternatives to Chrome and FF are closed: Opera, Safari... and back to IE. Anything else flags my browser session with on major sites with a lazy "sorry, you need a supported browser so that our CSS won't fail" message and full stop to my getting my content.

    180. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by RobertM1968 · · Score: 1

      I use my browser for much more than just surfing the net for pr0n...

      I wasn't aware there were other reasons... could you enlighten us?

    181. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by RobertM1968 · · Score: 2

      "Mozilla's motto for Firefox is to keep it being completely customizable..."

      Ah yes. That's why I can turn the status bar back on in FF4, right?

      Mod parent "-1 Doesn't understand what customizable means in this context".

      Yes, that is why you can turn the status bar back on. And why you can show no ads, or have your bookmarks folder look how you want. Or have thirty gazillion toolbars. Or have a minimalist browser look and feel. Or re-theme with the click of a button or two.

      You confuse the ability to customize with "Mozilla did all the work and considered every customization wanted and has settings for them all". They made it customizable... now all you have to do is download and install some customizations, or write your own.

    182. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 1

      There are clearly and identifiably two classes of users: knowledgeable and those that are using an appliance.

      Lets call them Morlocks, and Eloi.

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    183. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      f11 nub

    184. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by lennier · · Score: 1

      Same here. I'm a grumpy old UI Luddite, (I hate the MS ribbon for instance, and I usually despise pop-up information, like the Ubuntu notifications system), and fully expected to hate the Firefox 4 interface - but surprise, I love it! I don't miss the status bar because I get the URL preview information in exactly the same place as I always had it. And I don't mind the lack of menus at all, in fact I think the orange 'Firefox' button is the first menu-bar-less UI that actually 'gets it right'. But I'm also very happy that if I need the old UI back, I can restore it with about three mouse clicks (options, Menu Bar, Tabs On Top).

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    185. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by lennier · · Score: 1

      I think the observation is that most folks don't actually use the URL bar to type in a URL these days.

      Oi! I do!

      But I guess I'm not a "most folks" so I don't count.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    186. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Because the ugly blue chosen is a horrendous color? Seriously it was designed by the same people who designed the fisher price colors of Windows XP.

      No I just pick a color that you know blends with Windows 7 instead of standing out like a sore thumb. then a new window get opened automatically and it is a different color.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    187. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by CTU · · Score: 0

      That is true, but Mozilla could add the ability to track users like chrome if they wish.

      Also i did not know about Electrolysis, but that sounds good. I hope it does not require FF5 to use as I alreadydislike how much they chromed FF4 to want to use the next more chrome like FF release.

    188. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you really that stupid? Chrome uses whatever colour you have set for Windows. If you don't like that blue colour, then why are you using it for your entire OS?

    189. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by seeker_1us · · Score: 1

      Actually all the buttons and bars are there, but you have to do some customization to get them to a sane configuration. The default layout of FF4 is very lame. Now with this latest "URL bar must go" stuff, I'm starting to lose faith ...

    190. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe the crazy moves by Firefox will either drive people away from Gecko browsers, but you do have a choice: SeaMonkey.

      SeaMonkey is basically the Mozilla internet suite. It uses the same Gecko engine as FireFox. I use Seamonkey for two reasons: One I prefer the integration of browser, email and news groups in one application. Two SeaMonkey's developers developers have strongly resisted most of the "crazy" or just plain stupid changes.

      I don't understand many of the changes made by Mozilla for Firefox. I am thankful that the SeaMonkey developers will likely not be removing the URL bar.

      SeaMonkey is my alternative browser of choice to Firefox. It has been my browser since before SeaMonkey 1.0. I love it. You may want to give it a try.

      [BTW I am posting as Anonymous Coward since I post so little at Slashdot it is not worth making a log in profile.]

    191. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by lennier · · Score: 1

      The serial id is relevant for probably less than 1% of web users. Even as a slashdot user, I really don't need to see the url at the moment. I only use the bar when I want to go to a different site.

      So you never talk to anyone online about web pages? You never copy/paste URLs? You never verify a URL to make sure it's where you want to be? You never email someone a link?

      URLs are the nouns of the Web. Without names for things, we don't have a human language, we have a system of pointing and grunting. Hiding the URL of a page is as silly to me as taping everyone's mouth shut so they don't make those confusing noises called "words".

      But the computer industry seems to be plunging headlong into "you don't need to know what that is, just click the shiny" dystopia, so what do I know about silly?

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    192. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Sidewinder. Air to air IR guided missile.

      Stinger is a shoulder launcher ground to air missile. In that realm, russians were (and still are) so ahead it's not even funny. It's air to air where they lagged.

    193. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by mirix · · Score: 1

      He's not talking about 7.62, but 5.45mm, when the soviets went to the AK74 some time after the M16 came into existence.

      Not sure if it's really a fair argument though, the point of the smaller ammo was to be able to carry more, which happened. It's not as good in the jungle, though. At least the AK74's didn't jam to hell like early M16s... which was the main hate on 5.56, no?

      Suppose the russians still use both anyway, don't they?

      --
      Sent from my PDP-11
    194. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 1

      Opera 11 has a partially-hidden URL bar, and it's very annoying. It shows me what site I'm visiting (example: youtube.com) but leaves off other relevant information like the Serial ID of the video.

      ctr + F12 --> Browsing then select "show full web address in address field"

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
    195. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by metamatic · · Score: 1

      Gah, what is with Mozilla following Google's every example, no matter how stupid or not?

      Actually, they only follow the stupid examples. The good things, like per-domain script permissions, they refuse to implement.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    196. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by metamatic · · Score: 1

      The day Chrome has true support for NoScript, I'll switch back. Never before.

      Chrome has the equivalent of NoScript built in. If a site tries to run scripts, you get an icon to the right of the URL bar. Clicking on that gives you a drop-down to let you enable scripts for that site.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    197. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Ephemeriis · · Score: 1

      I think the observation is that most folks don't actually use the URL bar to type in a URL these days.

      Oi! I do!

      But I guess I'm not a "most folks" so I don't count.

      I still type URLs into the URL bar all the time.

      But a good 80% or more of my users don't do that. They'll hit something in their bookmarks, or type in some fragment of an address or a couple keywords and hope the browser can figure it out, or they'll throw something in the search box, or they'll go to Google/Bing/Yahoo/whatever and do a search from there.

      Hell, half the time I give someone a full URL they wind up going to Google and putting it in the search box.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    198. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I use Firefox because I don't like Chrome."

      I'd say that's part of the problem. You should be using Firefox because you like Firefox. Unfortunately, this carries over to many other things, including operating systems. I switched from Firefox to Chrome for the same reason I switched from Windows to Linux: Because it made me less desirous to inflict violence on its creators.

    199. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by metamatic · · Score: 1

      My local firewall and router have admin interfaces that require a dotted-quad entry in the URL bar.

      What, you can't bookmark them?

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    200. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Toam · · Score: 2

      I think the argument is that you shouldn't need an Add-on to display a god damned status bar

    201. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by petman · · Score: 1

      In fact, on my Windows XP laptop, Firefox does start faster than Chrome. Honestly. That's the reason I've recently switched to Firefox after having used Chrome for ages.

    202. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by petman · · Score: 2

      Ah, I see. You're still basing on FF3.6. Firefox's up to 4.0.1 now, and it's much faster and more memory efficient than the old version.

    203. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Migraineman · · Score: 1

      I can certainly use a bookmark ... once I've typed the dotted-quad into the URL bar. Getting it in there in the first place is the issue.

    204. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Retron · · Score: 1

      People actually do that and worry about that stuff?

      Funnily enough, electricity isn't free. If I were to leave this computer on 24/7, for example, it'd cost around £60 a year ($98) more than it currently does. It's not a King's ransom, but it's still enough cash to be more useful for something else (such as buying a couple of tanks of fuel for the car).

    205. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by mmj638 · · Score: 1

      Mozilla has been talking about doing this since before Chrome existed.

      But as a community it can't exactly do things (or even decide on what to do) very quickly.

    206. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by DarkXale · · Score: 1

      If you run with the system's Task bar though - thats another 25px, for 150 total. On a ****x600 screen (netbooks) - that ends up being 1/4th of your screen estate. Not exactly what I'd call optimal.

    207. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ChienAndalu · · Score: 1

      The name of the page is most often on a prominent spot on the page, most likely in the upper left corner.

      If I want to copy the url, a context menu action "copy current sites url" would suffice.

      If I for some reason would like to check the url, which as I said is a bad way to check validity, I would be happy with pressing a key to display the address bar temporarily.

      And by the way, the computer industry *is* right. You need to now that the sid is 2185238 and the cid is 36246266 for the current url as much as you need to know the heap size and the stack content of your browser. You really do only want to click the shiny.

    208. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 1

      Um, thanks for the correction!

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    209. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      More the half the add-ons I run are just to fix things Mozilla broke.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    210. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Gmail is just as bad. The edit box scales to your window width so on my 1920x1200 monitor it is ridiculous. I used a greasemonkey hack to reduce its width, or just open it in a new window.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    211. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, I want my status bar back. Good for web dev's.

    212. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Xest · · Score: 1

      What all these browser manufacturers are trying to do is remove as much of the browser as possible, so that when we get to their envisaged day of all our apps being web pages we can load them up in the browser and because there will be nothing left of the browser all we will see is the app as if we're just using a desktop app.

      What they should really be doing however is just replacing HTTP and (X)HTML with a whole new set of standards designed to allow development and usage of such cloud based applications- a client that can have all sorts of standard controls and so forth transmitted to it in a stateful way with security by default. HTML, HTTP and so forth are such shit fits for the job I wish they'd stop trying to mangle them into something they are not, and instead just keep browsers as browsers and make their new web from scratch without trying to (badly) mangle legacy stuff into something it's not.

    213. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Computers are in use every day, hand crank cars that dont have a safety crank are more rare than the do-do bird. Very bad example. and YES I do know how to do that. I would seek out a safety crank before using a standard crank though. I also know how to start a aircraft safely by prop spinning.

      But in today's society a computer is not a curious oddity that very few people have. They are everywhere. and just like knowing how to open a door or how to flush a toilet, using a computer is required knowledge in today's society. But the dumbing down is an American only phenomenon In japan they don't dumb down products unless they are planning on shipping them to the USA. There are fantastic products they sell there that they would never ship here because they are convinced that Americans are too dumb to use them, and they are in fact correct. In Europe you are REQUIRED to know how to drive a Stick shift to get your license... every country requires this. In the USA we dropped that requirement. Stick shift cars and trucks are common, so why do we not require the education for a drivers license?

      And sorry, but a power boat is not easier to operate than a canoe. Making something simple when complexity is not needed? sure. making it simple because the majority does not want to bother with learning? no.

      I'm all for making all home theater gear work together to have one button turn it all on and do what is commanded. there is no reason to have 10 different remotes simply because the equipment makers are too lazy to make this stuff communicate. It's complexity borne from lazyness and has no useful purpose.

      Complexity borne from usefulness like a URL bar that lets me go to a website that google does not know about? that is useful on many levels to everyone.
      Just like how your car can go in a direction that there is no road. IT's not as easy as the road, but it's still there for you. I'd hate to not be able to pull into my driveway because google maps has not indexed my house yet.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    214. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Removing the status bar was stupid. Removing the URL bar would be tragic. They can kiss me goodbye. I'll learn to use safari or opera until somebody forks mozilla and gives us the features we want.

    215. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      I guess the question really is, what does removing all these UI elements accomplish that Fullscreen doesn't already provide. If I were running on a netbook that's what I'd do (FF can be set to auto-fullscreen upon opening). I personally don't run with the system taskbar visible and if I do it runs along the side of my screen. I use Launchy as my primary way of accessing programs, and Windows+Tab for switching between programs. There are tonnes of solutions available without ruining it for those with lots of monitor space to work with (like me on a 17" laptop screen right now or later when I hook it up to a 30" monitor)

    216. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by hesiod · · Score: 2

      I use my browser for much more than just surfing the net for pr0n...

      I wasn't aware there were other reasons... could you enlighten us?

      There's also trolling /.

    217. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by EdgeCreeper · · Score: 1

      Just tried it for myself and I haven't been able to get that effect. If my cursor is near the bottom and it is too close to where the URL preview would be displayed, the URL preview gets put on the other side. So when I had a link that was near the bottom left, the URL preview would appear on the bottom right of the window. I agree with your sentiment that the URL preview implemented at the moment is inferior to displaying the URL in the status bar. One of the most noticable things is that I find it very hard to see on the background of a web page. I think using Status-4-Evar is worth it even if there is slight issues with NosScript and possibly other add-ons. On the other hand, I have found the AwesomeBar that some people whined about to be a huge boost to things I want to find.

    218. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

      No, but making it hidden by default will make it *even easier* for people to get scammed

      1- no status bar by default. So when I highlight a link, it won't show http://hax0red.sony.com/redirect_visaCC_nigeria.html
      2- no URL bar by default, meaning it's now loading that website, without the victim being able to see the URL (not that it will change much for stupid users)

      People are stupid enough and are already clicking anywhere. dumbing bown the browser for the masses is not what needs to be done.

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    219. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      Can you cite some specific software packages that want to install a browser (chrome) specifically? BR. It would have to have been something I was installing from a download, like a new version of AdAware or AVG.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    220. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by icebraining · · Score: 1

      If it's anything like the Chrome status bar - and it seems like it - it still appears as an overlay with the URL when you highlight a link.

    221. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      well NATO had tried to goto a smaller cartridge before circa 1951 the EM-2 .280 even got the french to agree I believe but America veto'd it

    222. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      agree. firefox is, right now, even worse than ie9 in every regard. except it has tree style tabs. that is the only reason it is still installed on my pc.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    223. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      google did a very visible ad campaign here a few months ago. billboards, television, internet, everywhere. and right now, every 2 out of 3 people i know uses chrome.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    224. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by peragrin · · Score: 1

      I am not using it. and chrome does use that blue.

      I changed the colors in windows , but chrome is still using that blue.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    225. Re:Following Google to Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I've not used Seamonkey since it was called the Mozilla Suite and Firefox was Firebird, but I don't get what exactly makes it faster than Firefox.

      Most of the 'features' in Firefox are in fact in Gecko, which Seamonkey also uses. The rest is basically the UI, which don't affect that performance noticeably.

      Why exactly is Firefox "bloated" and Seamonkey isn't?

      Give it a try and find out. I don't know how, but Mozilla has somehow managed to bloat Firefox up to a point where SeaMonkey just feels faster. It's been like this since... hell, I don't even remember, SeaMonkey 1.x vs. Firefox 2/3. And with SeaMonkey 2, the browser's GUI has been given a slight facelift, reducing visual clutter. This kind of kills that "classic" Netscape look though.

      I think the problem is that while Mozilla has been busy adding useless shit not caring about system performance and not bothering to fix long-overdue performance bugs (anyone remember the memory leaks?), the SeaMonkey team has been steadily improving on a mature base. The biggest upgrade, which brought SeaMonkey up to the latest Firefox in terms of rendering and extensions, was not until 2.x AFAIK.

  2. Great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You know who else didn't have a URL bar?

    AOL.

    1. Re:Great idea! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      AOL actually added one, I thought.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:Great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I remember that. People on AOL could not use the Internet unless it was "approved" by AOL. You would say something like, "Go to this site, it's so cool!" And people on AOL said, "I can't". I would say, "No way, let me try" and sure enough it wouldn't let you.

      A quick search brings back memories...

      http://www.isomedia.com/homes/vertical/aol.htm

    3. Re:Great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's bull. I used AOL for years before broadband came to my area. I would log in to AOL, then minimize it and use Netscape to browse. I never had any problem going anywhere on the Web. I even used my own FTP client. The only thing AOL forced you to use their software for was email. You were probably just to stupid to adjust your parental settings.

    4. Re:Great idea! by kevinmenzel · · Score: 1

      How early exactly did you use AOL? Because I recall using AOL back in the days before Netscape hit 1.0 (Netscape 0.9 was what my first ISP bundled with their startup package) I certainly recall frustrations with AOL back then (1992-1993ish)..., so I'm curious as to what exactly your timeline was for AOL use....

    5. Re:Great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty much since it started. Hell, I remember using Compuserve on a 300 baud when it was $10/hr. I didn't say it didn't suck. I said the comment that they controled where on the web you could go was bull.

    6. Re:Great idea! by GuldKalle · · Score: 1

      And you know who else? Hitler! There wasn't even one Location bar in the whole third reich.

      --
      What?
    7. Re:Great idea! by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      AOL didn't have an address bar, because it didn't need them.

    8. Re:Great idea! by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      And you know who else railed for keeping address bars at all cost?

      Hitler.

  3. I hate devs who follow "trends". by aristotle-dude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing gets under my skin more than devs who like to follow the latest trends without considering whether what they are doing actually delivers concrete value to the end user or at least makes the codebase more maintainable in a real measurable way. Newer is not always better.

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
    1. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by White+Flame · · Score: 2

      Not to mention that the last link in TFS effectively calls for a CLI based browser, which would suck for handheld devices or people who aren't seasoned keyboard jockeys.

    2. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by neoform · · Score: 2

      They should change the URL bar to be limited to 140 chars, that'll make web programmers make their urls more concise and to the point!

      --
      MABASPLOOM!
    3. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My pet peave is that when anyone follows any trend, they automatically think the other guy has "a good reason" for doing it. Or something that's successful in one market they automatically think that it'll successful in another.

      Consumers do it too. They someone with something and they have to have it too.

      In short, people are lemmings: regardless if they're a business or a consumer.

      Maybe the new name for "Firefox" should be "Lemming"?

    4. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by rudy_wayne · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nothing gets under my skin more than devs who like to follow the latest trends without considering whether what they are doing actually delivers concrete value to the end user or at least makes the codebase more maintainable in a real measurable way. Newer is not always better.

      I understand when a commercial software company (Microsoft, Adobe, etc) does this. They must constantly release "new" versions of their products in order to generate sales. Constantly changing things, re-arranging the entire program and constantly "fixing" things that aren't broken is stupid, but I understand why they do it.

      Using this approach with Firefox, however, makes absolutely no sense at all. Firefox is given away for free. There is no sales revenue. Mozilla may get money from Google for making them the default search engine in Firefox, but that will happen regardless of any changes that are made toFirefox.

      Firefox 2.0, which was released several years ago, was feature-complete as a web browser. Since then, their focus should have been strictly on things that are "under the hood" -- (a) fix any security holes or other bugs that are discovered (b ) improve rendering speed (javascript, etc).and memory use (3) When needed add new stuff that comes along (HTML 5, etc).

      That's it. Period.

      There is no need to constantly fuck with the user interface, adding pointless crap, removing useful features.

    5. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by Myopic · · Score: 1

      Mmm hmm. And what about when the devs know how to "deliver concrete value" better than you do? Do you still hate that?

    6. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    7. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Id be in favor of that, maybe it would teach some clever web devs that the URL bar isnt supposed to be used for data storage. Some of the URLs I see floating around up there are ridiculous.

    8. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Whens the last time youve used firefox 2? I have about 50 feet from me some servers running Solaris with firefox 2.0 on them. Since they didnt have curl, fetch, wget, or any of the other tools, I thought I would go online and download a software client that I needed through firefox. You know, after about the 5th crash / lockup on the same page, my appreciation for more recent versions of firefox grew.

      I think I ended up going straight to ftp.mozilla.org and downloading a more recent firefox, after which it all worked wonderfully. Whats that old saying, the grass is always greener...?

    9. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen brother!

    10. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by lennier · · Score: 1

      without considering whether what they are doing actually delivers concrete value to the end user

      Guido here and me would like to make you a value proposition. We're, uh, rearchitecting our enterprise customer-facing services framework to better align with best practices in the public-private-partnership arena, like, and in a spirit of mutual synergestic "coopetition" we'd appreciate it if you, um, respected our de-facto industrial standard. Capiche?

      'Cos otherwise Guido would have to deliver some concrete value to your end-users. In a sort of, cloud deployment, from the top of the Empire State Building.

      Glad we had this little talk.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    11. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Mozilla 1.7.13 on my desktop box instead of this newfangled firefox thing. Oddly enough on that where you enter the URL doubles for entering search terms - I think Firefox took a step backwards when they spilt those up.
      Of course I'm posting this from Firefox 3.6.17 running on a cluster node and displaying on my screen via X since Slashdot looks like crap on Mozilla 1.7.13.

    12. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Firefox is given away for free. There is no sales revenue.

      There's always ego.

      Plenty to go around in both the open source and free-as-in-beer world.

    13. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by neoform · · Score: 1

      I was joking...

      URLs are in fact for data, that's the key difference between GET and POST. GET is for storing values in the URL, which makes it very easy to share a session with a different computer via URL...

      Some sites do go overboard and have thousands of characters, but that's pretty rare.

      --
      MABASPLOOM!
    14. Re:I hate devs who follow "trends". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no need to constantly fuck with the user interface, adding pointless crap, removing useful features.

      Like FF4 removed the title of the current page from the program's menu/title bar. Without modification It's now only available on the tab's text and that's simply not enough for the majority of web pages. It really sucks for most forums if trying to read and reply to threads using multiple tabs. They choose form over function.

  4. Stop It! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every time Mozilla releases a new version of Firefox, they make it uglier and more annoying. Please STOP IT! The so-called "Awesome Bar" is NOT awesome. Every time upgrade, I have to hunt around for options and add-ons, to put Firefox back to the way I like it.

    1. Re:Stop It! by Shikaku · · Score: 1

      It's not like you can't find alternatives.

    2. Re:Stop It! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Idiotic comments like this completely miss the point (and the links every other word is just retarded).

    3. Re:Stop It! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They were not every other word. Nyah nyah nah nyah nah!!

  5. No way by frizop · · Score: 1

    You can pry the URL bar from my cold dead hands

    1. Re:No way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your proposal is acceptable.

  6. The latest GUI innovation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... the command line! Brilliant...

    1. Re:The latest GUI innovation... by ddd0004 · · Score: 1

      So now I have to wget http://slashdot.org/ | firefox

    2. Re:The latest GUI innovation... by NervousWreck · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up for great snark.

      --
      I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
    3. Re:The latest GUI innovation... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      "Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it poorly. " Fortunately, there's a browser for those of use who do understand UNIX.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:The latest GUI innovation... by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      mmm I sure do love alpha software!

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  7. I <3 URL Bars by vinn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I like URL bars. They're quick and easy to type into, they let me see exactly where I'm browsing at (in theory), and when it comes time to copy and paste a link it's simple. The added 33 pixels means nothing to me.

    Alternatively, we could consider removing the URL bar if it was replaced with a button that gave David Regev electroshock therapy every time it was clicked. Oh, and that Google guy too who's removing it.

    --
    ----- obSig
  8. Could Someone Explain to me... by OS24Ever · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ....why I don't want a URL bar? How the hell am I supposed to type in the places I want to go. What are they thinking? I don't get it. I also tend not to change my habits. Is typing in URLs passe now? Am I supposed to rely on my browser to take me where I want to go? What's the deal?

    Not trolling here. I'm serious, I don't get this 'feature' at all. I open a blank page and search on google and hope my search term works the next time?

    --

    As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.

    1. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by jdastrup · · Score: 3, Funny

      You still type in URL's? So old fashioned. I just think where I want to go and, BING, I'm there!

    2. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's simple really. Rather than type in a URL, they want you to use the search box. This is why google loves it.

    3. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by PvtVoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ....why I don't want a URL bar? How the hell am I supposed to type in the places I want to go. What are they thinking? I don't get it.

      Everything is on Facebook now, so other URLs are obsolete. Didn't you get the tweet?

    4. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do it with butterflies. It takes ages but you feel like you accomplished something.

    5. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      IT DOESN'T GET RID OF THEM.
      Why the hell don't people READ?
      The last article on Google removing them had me wanting to smash my face through my desk due to the amount of stupidity in it.
      Where the hell did all these people come from? Reddit? Facebook?

      It is an option to HIDE the bar behind an icon, menu item, context access, whatever. It isn't to remove it from the interface completely.

      I certainly welcome it. The location bar is terribly wasteful.
      Considering how websites are designed vertically (most of the time), I would rather have as much space as possible vertically.
      Hence the reason I have loads of tabs over to my left via side tab navigation.
      Now if only Google would let me collapse that bar when I don't need it, and ditch the whole top bar with buttons, or at least move it on to the sidebar where it should be. Just have an arrow on every sidetab entry that lets you pop out the controls, bham, sorted.

      As for people who are scared about phishing, I probably don't care about these people enough as it is since they are probably part of the growing number of people who shouldn't be on computers in the first place, never mind the Internet!

    6. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by kirjoittaessani · · Score: 1

      Apparently, many people nowadays you Google to find their favourite sites. Even if they do know the URL. Like this: http://google.com?q=slashdot.org.

    7. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by jfengel · · Score: 1

      A blank page is different from ordinary web pages. A blank page will require some tool that allows you to type in where you want to go, including the option of typing in a URL. If you're going to have that, it might as well be a big feature of the page, in large text, rather than an inconspicuous and often unlabeled bar at the top.

      It's inconspicuous and unlabeled in your current browser because you rarely refer to it. Most of it is meaningless, to you if not to the server. This URL is http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/05/25/1532246/Mozilla-Labs-the-URL-Bar-Has-To-Go. "Slashdot" and the article title are repeated in the browser's frame bar (and in fact the server probably ignores it). A Slashdot reader can eke out more meaning, but nearly all other users find it impenetrable.

      Removing it would give it a cleaner look and show you slightly more of the web page at once without scrolling. 90% of the time, your next web page will be arrived at by clicking a link. The rest of the time, when you want an unrelated page, you bring it up in a new tab/window, which will have a conspicuous place for you to type a URL.

      My one remaining concern is that while the URL is mostly meaningless, the domain name is not. It's nice to know for sure that this is "slashdot.org", and that I'm not typing this into a malicious page. I'm glad to be able to glance up and get that information, rather than having to bring it up. But given the various ways of disguising URLs, it may well be better to show me precisely and explicitly just the domain name, rather than having me parse the URL myself (something grandma is unlikely to do).

      I don't know where they'd put it, though. Cleaning up the look was the goal, and hiding it means I have to go find it when I need it.

    8. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That must suck to have porn as every other page you go to... or not.

    9. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by nmnilsson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm guessing Google picked up on how several of my family members (and many, many other computer users I'm afraid) actually enter URLs:
      1. Click browser home button, arrive at google.com
      2. Type URL in search box, then click first link (for advanced users: click "I'm feeling lucky")
      No matter how I try to explain how backwards this is, they keep doing it. Take away the search bar and I can't even argue the sane alternative.

      More hits for google.com - more data, ads and more money for them. Only makes sense, really.

      --
      No sig to see here. Move along.
    10. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The guy in question said:

      The location bar has to go. It has many problems. For one, it’s always visible and constantly takes up a large amount of space.

      Large amount of space? It takes up less space than a row of tabs, and they're always visible too.

      Secondly, it’s hard to read, since people don’t really understand URLs.

      That's not a problem with the URL bar, that's a problem with URLs. Taking it away won't really benefit the people who don't understand them or the people who do.

      Moreover, it’s modal: it has a mode for displaying the current page’s location and a mode for entering your next destination. It’s not always immediately obvious which mode you’re in and what the current text is indicating, and switching modes is not easy either.

      I've no idea what he's getting at here. You navigate to a page, and it shows where you are. You click on it and type to enter where you want to go. The distinction between modes generally comes with whether or not you've clicked on it. I can't say I've ever started typing a new URL in the box, thought "crap, where am I?" and been frustrated that I couldn't get my present URL back.

      Finally, the destination-entering mode is merely an example of running one command, and we already have a better interface for running commands: Ubiquity.

      Which, from what I've gathered from their video, is a method of integrating your browser with vairous other services like maps, email, review sites and calendar software, and relies on the interface interpreting what you've typed into it. For a start I've never felt like these things need more integrating, and anyway personal experiences with software interpretation of what I want has been horrific. Why can't they just let a browser be a browser?

      Where the hell are we supposed to go and view the URL once the bar is gone? I thought I'd wandered into an odd clone of one of my favourite websites earlier, and didn't know what was going on until I realised the URL was for alt.website rather than the main page. +1 to the comments other people have made about phishing too. Every time I'm banking online I keep a close eye on the URL I'm on. How are we supposed to do that now?

    11. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Wait, Bing can do that?

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    12. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe some of us don't want M$ or Mozilla deciding where they want us to go, instead.
      Just b/c it's new don't mean it's better.

    13. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BING

      Oblig.: BING!

    14. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 1

      Aaargh! It's bad enough in the browser... now YOU can read my mind too?! Stop it!

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    15. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Have you read the link?
      They seem more intent on giving you more screen space for the browser. I am still not happy how bookmarks seem be becoming outmoded.
      To type in a url you will click on the firebox button or hold down the alt key. You will then get a bubble to type in that has the functions of the awesome bar plus some natural language stuff.
      I hate the idea of natural language because it will be more verbose than a command system.
      For example.
      "Move the file named addresses of friends to the folder called personal information."
      vs
      mv "addresses of friends" "personal information"/

      Thing is that just because I don't like it doesn't mean it is a bad idea. And it really doesn't look like they are just copying Google but expanding on the idea that more browser space for pages is better.
      I think the hating and screams of copying are at this time premature.
      Maybe it would be cool to say "look up B-17" have then have a browser give you a combined page of Google, Bing, and Wikipedia info on the B-17.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    16. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by fermion · · Score: 2
      Right now most of the structure of a web page are customizable by the user. The question is then will the URL be off by default, and will there be options to turn it back on? If the URL is going to go away completely, then this is just the MS vision of an application front end controlled by a subscribed service.

      From a usability point of view the URL has been criticized from at least 1999, mostly due to influx of machine generated addresses on dynamic web pages. Since that time, the url has only become more obfuscated, so it would seem that the URL bar has reached a point where it should go away.

      OTOH there is a security issue. The URL does provide a means of knowing where one is on the web. Of course with embedded content, the URL can lie, but that is more about bad and intentionally fraudulent behavior, not abou the URL. The URL also allows user a means to get from one place to another without an intervening service or sanctioned links. This freedom can cut into revenue.

      Really, if the URL can be turned off and on, then that is about user choice for a simpler interface. If the URL cannot be turned back on, then that is about the browser wanting to control the user experience, probably to maximize tracking data and ad data. For a consumer browser like Firefox and Chrome and IE, it would make sense for the URL to be turned off by default. These are browser used by the masses who don't know what URL stands for, doesn't understand what it means, and doesn't care if Google or whomever tracks their every move. I would just be surprised to see Mozilla do it.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    17. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      I had never really paid attention to Ubiquity before, but with this discussion I decided to go take a look at it. The idea that they will replace the URL bar with something like Ubiquity scares me to death. I don't know about others, but every so often I will need to do something that I know is possible on the computer, but don't remember how. I will go to Google to look it up. Most of the time I have to spend 10-15 minutes trying different ways of phrasing the task I want to accomplish before the search results actually reflect what I want to do. Now imagine having to do that everytime you want to navigate to a new website.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    18. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see this every day at work. I think it's beyond dumb, but it's standard practice for a lot of people.

    19. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by delta534 · · Score: 1

      I do that occasional mainly because I forgot if the site was .org, .net or .com and I am on a different computer.

    20. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 1

      Natural language command would be awesome and practical. If speech recognition was worth a damn. And preferably available in all languages with the same (top-notch) efficiency.

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    21. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by JustinOpinion · · Score: 1

      Well I know it's cheating to RTFA, but most of the complaints in the comments right now are totally missing the mark, since their worries are addressed in the actual blog post. There's plenty enough that's wrong with this idea without imagining problems that are not there or haven't been addressed in this idea. (And it is just an off-the-wall idea right now.)
      Let me address some complaints: 1. Why hide the URL bar, it gives useful information! The proposal actually still keeps all the URL information. However instead of it always sitting at the top of the browser chrome, it's attached to the webpage, and scrolls up/down with it so that you can scroll it out of the way when you want. There is some logic to this: you normally want to look at the URL when you first land on a page. After that you don't need it as much. (Yes, there are exceptions.) The proposal is in fact to add more information to keep the user informed. (A possible downside is information overload.)
      2. Why is Mozilla copying Google? From what I can tell this isn't inspired from Google, other than in the sense that there is a general trend to reduce chrome (and not just in browsers). The Google proposal is to auto-hide the URL bar, and have it popup when needed. This proposal is to conceptually attach the url to the page rather than to the browser chrome.
      3. How am I going to enter new URLs without the URL bar? The proposal is that you will either edit the URL that is at the top of the current page, or use a "browse" command where you'll be able to type or paste an URL.

      Now, having addressed (partially) those immediate concerns, let's ask whether this is a good idea or not. Personally, I'm in favor of at least designing and testing new, crazy UI ideas. It's the only way that we can discover new and better ways to interact with out computer. So I'm supportive of having a discussion, and I don't think changing the URL bar should be off the table. That having been said, the proposal has a number of problems:
      1. It heavily draws upon Jef Raskin's design rule of "there should be only one way to accomplish a certain atomic task". The idea is that by having only way, good, way to do something, users can train and habitualize and accomplish the task faster and without thinking. It's true that psych research has shown that having options (including different ways to do the same thing) subtly slows down a person's response time and thus can jar their thought processes. However I haven't seen any conclusive research showing that this is significant enough to warrant having a "only one way" rule--since it denies (for instance) power users the ability to learn keyboard shortcuts, can make it more difficult for accessibility or even just for people of various abilities (some people can't type well but can click on icons well enough). The design in the blog post favors a natural-language text entry system (basically the Ubiquity system that exists for Firefox). Personally, I quite like that mode of controlling a computer, but I suspect the vast majority of people would view this kind of command-entry (much like a commandline, though somewhat more forgiving) as being very intimidating. Overall, I'm not convinced that having only "one way" to control the interface makes sense.

      2. The author takes it as a given that we should aim to reduce application chrome. Again, I personally agree with this from both an aesthetic standpoint, and from a usability standpoint. But then again, that's because I'm happy spending the time to memorize keyboard shortcuts and other tricks (e.g. instaling mouse gestures) so that I can remove the chrome and concentrate on the content. But, again, I don't think this really applies to everyone.

    22. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by bryan1945 · · Score: 1

      Yes, as long as it is Microsoft related.

      --
      Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
    23. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nope, it wasn't on facebook :P

    24. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by xhrit · · Score: 1

      >More hits for google.com - more data, ads and more money for them. Only makes sense, really.

      this. mod parent up.

    25. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 1

      The vast majority of the time, I use my bookmarks to hit the sites I love.

      Sometimes, I click on a link from a forum (including /., Digg, and Redit links).

      Sometimes, I search for something in Google and click the links there.

      I *almost* never type in a URL.

      Still, not sure that an extra 150~200 pixels is really going to make or break my browsing experience.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    26. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I do that occasional mainly because I forgot if the site was .org, .net or .com and I am on a different computer.

      Then you're not typing in the URL to the site you want to go to. That's fine. If you don't remember how to get to XKCD, just type in "xkcd", but it's absurd to type or copy/paste "http://www.xkcd.com" into the Google search bar.

    27. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you got to hitwise http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10134.html, and look at the top search terms they are facebook, youtube, craigslist and ebay.

    28. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by sorak · · Score: 1

      ....why I don't want a URL bar? How the hell am I supposed to type in the places I want to go. What are they thinking? I don't get it. I also tend not to change my habits. Is typing in URLs passe now? Am I supposed to rely on my browser to take me where I want to go? What's the deal?

      Not trolling here. I'm serious, I don't get this 'feature' at all. I open a blank page and search on google and hope my search term works the next time?

      I think this is really more about "autohiding" the URL bar. In chrome, you can bring up the supposedly non-existent URL bar by double-clicking the browser tab. As for Mozilla Labs, they're just tossing the idea around, so it's too premature to really know if and how they would do it.

    29. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you put it like that, Google's probably kicking some of that back to Firefox too then, since the firefox home page is just a custom google search page...

    30. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you do know there's an emacs command to do that, right?

    31. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by swilly · · Score: 1

      Actually, I have found that Google searches parts of Microsofts site better. Google works well with all kinds of technical searches, but Bing gives embarrassingly poor results, even when searching MSDN.

      I think Microsoft spent a lot of effort into getting good results for common searches (products, travel, and so on), but didn't spend as much effort on rarer searches. In other words, when they developed Bing, they focused on competing with Google on popular searches, but they ignored the long tail. It looks like they are paying more attention to this now, if my last side by side comparison is anything to go by. Google still leads, but Bing isn't as hopeless as it once was at these kinds of searches.

    32. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by ocdude · · Score: 1

      CTRL-L or Command-L on a mac. They aren't getting rid of the URL bar, they are simply hiding it by default. I'm going to assume that similar to the tabs on top thing in Firefox4, there will most likely be a configuration you can change to show it by default.

    33. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Halifax+Samuels · · Score: 1

      Why not just fullscreen your browser? I believe F11 is generally the hotkey for most browsers. I do that from time to time to get the most out of my screen. You've still got access to everything, it's just auto-hidden must like the Windows taskbar can be.

      I really don't appreciate the thought by Mozilla that I don't understand URL bars or don't know how to use them. It's insulting to think that by now the vast majority of computer users don't understand almost everything about them. It shows where you are; if you type something and hit enter it tries to go there; some URL bars act as search bars as well; it's not that difficult to wrap your mind around. Besides, I would much rather spare those 50 pixels or so for easier access to it.

      I'm not fond of Ubiquity so far, either. It's all personal preference, and I'll prefer using a more traditional-looking browser if I can't eventually undo all these design changes Mozilla wants to implement. The moment I have to use a third-party add-on to restore the look and feel I want is the moment I change browsers. I'm only sticking with Firefox now because of Ad-Block and one or two other plugins.

    34. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bollocks.

      The URL bar is the only way you can see if you are being taken somewhere dangerous.
      Think of all the issues with URL Shortening. So you clink on this short UTL and it takes you to a spoof page that looks like the original but will capture your login or other details

      FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL.
      If they do this then I'm going to give up using Firefox.

    35. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by RogerWilco · · Score: 1

      I open a blank page and search on google and hope my search term works the next time?

      I can understand Chrome going this direction. It gives Google more information what pages people are visiting.

      Myself, I prefer keeping the URL bar. I use it quite often, and have for the last 17 or so years. It either means I'm getting old, or that this is just a stupid idea.
      It's one of the few features in any webbrowser that's always there. So when a family member phones me up with some problem, I can always tell them to type something in the address bar, even if it's just 10.11.12.13 to get to their router to reset it.

      --
      RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
    36. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by epyT-R · · Score: 2

      first paragraph

      more often than not, the url bar is the only way I can get to where I want to be on a site.. more often, where I want to go, and how I want to go is different than the idiot 'web master' who coded the site intended. changing the url and hitting enter is a lot faster than wading through the stupifyingly obtuse web 2.1 interfaces common today...most of them won't even work with the 'back' button.

      second paragraph

      this is less so because the URL bar can be manipulated. it was never a secure means of figuring out what your browser is doing, especially once javascript came along. as far as revenue goes, I'm sorry, but I'm not obligated to step through someone else's bullshit so that they can make money. they have a right to try of course, but once that stream hits my machine, I decide. the internet is not television. I pay for my bandwidth so they can pay for theirs. they can also take their ball and go home. that's fine. the browser should not become a dumb terminal. removing the url bar removes whatever control the user does have over the experience.

      third paragraph

      no it's about defaults.. if it defaults 'off' then most people will gradually forget it was there, along with the benefits it provided. those that didn't touch a browser beforehand will never know what they missed. the internet is now one step closer to cable television. just because someone doesn't understand something doesn't mean you should remove it from their presence. this is a trend nowadays and it's dangerous.

    37. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      They arent trying to get rid of the URL bar, they are redesigning it. It will still behave the same for all intensive purposes. Most users wont know I would guess. But having the URL bar parse commands would allow power users to be able to do way more. Even right nwo your URL bar does more than just http and https. But what if you could do more? That is all that is being suggested here, a much more powerful white box at the top of your screen, not removing it completely.

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    38. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by rsborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm guessing Google picked up on how several of my family members (and many, many other computer users I'm afraid) actually enter URLs:
      1. Click browser home button, arrive at google.com
      2. Type URL in search box, then click first link (for advanced users: click "I'm feeling lucky")
      No matter how I try to explain how backwards this is, they keep doing it. Take away the search bar and I can't even argue the sane alternative.

      More hits for google.com - more data, ads and more money for them. Only makes sense, really.

      You know what this seemingly clumsy approach prevents? The dreaded 404.
      Typing your URL into Google gives you the following:
      1) A malformed URL 90% of the time is corrected by Google
      2) Google provides cached results if the original site has been slashdotted/LOIC'd
      3) Google can sometimes guess the original context of the content, and provide alternate content to match (this helps in veracity/context testing the content before you jump.. what happens if all the Google-provided results shout warnings or show pr0n while you link at work... useful to know).

      It's a very user-friendly and helpful bonus at a cost of one additional click. It certainly feels like Google understood this use case, improved it's benefits/outcomes and promoted it's use (hell if you type a non-crawled URL Google thinks it goes to nowhere, so it actively pushes site-owners to get their content

      People are often not as stupid as they seem. Don't underestimate the users; often you can learn and profit from where they do things "wrong".

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    39. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      So how are users of my application supposed to be able to access it at all, because it is not an application that is indexed by Google?

      So if Google cannot index my application (this is by choice) and Google does not want to let people to go to my site (people who need to go there to do the work they do with my site), then Google's move to remove URL bar makes sense.

      However if FF does this, and it means that my users cannot come to my site AT ALL, then FF turns into a USELESS BROWSER for me and my users.

      Now, I have contributed to FF ad-ons, built a small number of them, they are used by people around the world. If FF does this to me, I am removing my ad-ons from it. I know they don't care, but if they are going to try and destroy my business, I will make sure that those, who rely on my ad-ons can no longer do so either, and they then will be searching for alternatives.

      If URL address bar disappears from the browser, then this is no longer an Internet browser, but it is a Google (or whatever other search engine/directory) browser, and I cannot use it.

    40. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      Except that if the site, one needs to go to is not indexed, then it's as good as dead, because it can't be reached without typing the URL into the address bar, and many business sites are exactly like that.

    41. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Pretzalzz · · Score: 1

      I've been using Firefox with the URL bar hidden for a while now. If you want to type in a URL you hit Ctrl-L. It opens a dialog that is automatically focused. A side effect of this is that the result always opens in a new tab[theoretically you have a choice but I never bother with that drop down].

    42. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 1

      How about on the right of the currently visible tab itself?
      This is the tab that interests you right now, so it's intuitive to let it have more space while the other tabs are minimal.

      You could even place the URL bar there when double-clicking or ctrl-L-ing.
      Or go with the Google approach of a bar underneath only when needed.

      --
      ^_^
    43. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by mcmonkey · · Score: 2

      I'm guessing Google picked up on how several of my family members (and many, many other computer users I'm afraid) actually enter URLs:
      1. Click browser home button, arrive at google.com
      2. Type URL in search box, then click first link (for advanced users: click "I'm feeling lucky")
      No matter how I try to explain how backwards this is, they keep doing it. Take away the search bar and I can't even argue the sane alternative.

      More hits for google.com - more data, ads and more money for them. Only makes sense, really.

      You know what this seemingly clumsy approach prevents? The dreaded 404.

      And that is just one more reason why it is a bad idea. Why is a 404 dreaded? If a site is down or returning an error code, the user should see that.

      I have to deal with this in my employer's IS department. The standard browser is IE and errors redirect the bing. That makes my job a lot harder. If my server isn't responding, I don't need to be directed to a search engine.

      Yes, I know I'm not an average user. But what's wrong with even the average user seeing an error message?

      It's like replacing the check engine light, temperature gauge, etc. on your car's dashboard with a bike that pops out from the car's boot when it won't start. Yes, sometimes a bike will do in place of a car that won't start. But many times, it won't. And even if the average user can't interpret all the car's gauges, at least they get some feedback more than 'car won't start' and what's wrong with users learning something?

      You've taken a system that always gives you some information, and replaced it with a system that sometimes does exactly what is needed, but other times gives you nothing.

      When ISPs do this, the general consensus is against it. Why is it different when done in the browser?

      Call me old fashioned, but when I need to search, I go to google.com. If I want to go to a URL (and don't have a bookmark/favorite), I type in that URL.

      If we do away with the address bar, how do I differentiate going to a URL and searching for a URL (to see what other sites mention that URL)?

    44. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing Google picked up on how several of my family members (and many, many other computer users I'm afraid) actually enter URLs:
      1. Click browser home button, arrive at google.com
      2. Type URL in search box, then click first link (for advanced users: click "I'm feeling lucky")
      No matter how I try to explain how backwards this is, they keep doing it. Take away the search bar and I can't even argue the sane alternative.

      More hits for google.com - more data, ads and more money for them. Only makes sense, really.

      I used to think that this was stupid, until phishing and domain typos became widespread. Now, I actually advise users to do this because Google usually won't link to a malware site it if has been up for any amount of time, and even corrects some common typos.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    45. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 1

      ReadWriteWeb agrees with you. The comments are hilarious. Of course they are newest first so you have to load piles of spam before getting to the beginning.

      The short version: http://www.lastpodcast.net/2010/02/10/facebook-login-is-hard-welcome-to-idiocracy/

      The important bit: Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. You can however click here and become a Fan of ReadWriteWeb on Facebook, to receive our updates and learn more about the Internet. To access Facebook right now, click here. For future reference, type "facebook.com" into your browser address bar or enter "facebook" into Google and click on the first result. We recommend that you then save Facebook as a bookmark in your browser.

    46. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Because we want to be in an office full of people talking to their computers.
      Or not being abile to google something without interrupting the phone call we are on?
      Yea that would be... Terrible.
      Man if you thought people having personal conversations on cells in public was bad just wait till programers are dictation c++ code and support techs are trying to talk at the customer and computer at the same time.
      "Search Google for USB for Bluebird USB to serial adaptor manual"
      I don't need to search for the manual it is right here but I don't understand it that is why I am calling you!
      Not you the computer.
      The computer what?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    47. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 1

      Certainly not as the only input method. But it could speed up and streamline work/entertainment a lot.

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    48. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      It's inconspicuous and unlabeled in your current browser because you rarely refer to it. Most of it is meaningless, to you if not to the server. This URL is http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/05/25/1532246/Mozilla-Labs-the-URL-Bar-Has-To-Go [slashdot.org]. "Slashdot" and the article title are repeated in the browser's frame bar (and in fact the server probably ignores it). A Slashdot reader can eke out more meaning, but nearly all other users find it impenetrable.

      It tells me that I'm really on Slashdot, and not on a site which claims to be Slashdot (remember, the title can be set by the web page).

      But that gives me an idea: If they display the URL in the window title (and provide a way to get a version I can copy/paste), then the URL bar can go away.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    49. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      It will still behave the same for all intensive purposes.

      What are intensive purposes?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    50. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by rsborg · · Score: 1

      Except that if the site, one needs to go to is not indexed, then it's as good as dead, because it can't be reached without typing the URL into the address bar, and many business sites are exactly like that.

      Not sure about you, but wherever I've worked, people tend to click on internal system (ie, intranet) with abandon. If you're talking about sharing a link with URL session-based parameters, well, those are not really portable anyway are they?

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    51. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      I am actually talking about sites that have no DNS entry and only go by the IP address.

    52. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by lennier · · Score: 1

      How the hell am I supposed to type in the places I want to go.

      You'll use your Cue*Cat of course, like everyone else.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    53. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by lennier · · Score: 1

      This URL is http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/05/25/1532246/Mozilla-Labs-the-URL-Bar-Has-To-Go. "Slashdot" and the article title are repeated in the browser's frame bar (and in fact the server probably ignores it). A Slashdot reader can eke out more meaning, but nearly all other users find it impenetrable.

      Removing it would give it a cleaner look and show you slightly more of the web page at once without scrolling.

      Gah!

      You, sir or madame, are the reason why Apple is ruining everything. Good day to you! Good day, I say!

      The URL is a page's true name. Everything else about a page can be faked, but not the URL. A Web without URLS is like a city without street names, telephone numbers or licence plates, and where every stranger wears a mask.

      I don't give a Rhett Butler how "clean" a page looks if I can't tell where the heck I am in cyberspace.

      It's inconspicuous and unlabeled in your current browser because you rarely refer to it.

      No, it's unlabelled and right at the top because it's the single most important thing in the browser window. It gets to not have a name because it IS the name of everything else.

      Seriously, what are they teaching kids at school these days? Do they even use words? Do the teachers have names? How do people grow up thinking that unique global identifiers are somehow useless bits of text?

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    54. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by lennier · · Score: 1

      Except that if the site, one needs to go to is not indexed, then it's as good as dead, because it can't be reached without typing the URL into the address bar, and many business sites are exactly like that.

      Right, the whole point of URLS is that they're on business cards, sides of buses, etc, so that you can type them in.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    55. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by hirundo · · Score: 1

      Dude, alt-D and chill.

    56. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dunno, but it's a mute point.

    57. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefox has the ability to auto-ImFeelingLucky an unresolved url. Also omnibar extension.

    58. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by black+soap · · Score: 1

      You are only supposed to follow links from a content collector, so they can feed you to sites they have agreements with, rather than getting your news and information from multiple unrelated sources.

    59. Re:Could Someone Explain to me... by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      Intensive Purposes, eg practical purposes, the purposes that most people use it for, eg, typing in a web address.

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
  9. What's wrong with a classic browser? by LocalH · · Score: 1

    Ok, I understand tabs on top after using them. I understand the awesome bar's usefulness after having used it for a while. But no URL bar? Whatever happened to full-screen mode if you really need that much vertical real estate? I don't want to lose my URL bar, nor do I want to help support users who aren't knowledgeable who get a browser update containing this (if Mozilla and Google are both going in this direction, I expect IE10 to also be URL bar-less). Is this going to finally validate all those people who think that a search engine text entry field equals a URL bar? Those who type in "google.com" to a Bing or Yahoo search page?

    I'd much rather have the rendering and processing backends optimized to hell and back, and it least it seems they've been doing that - thanks to hardware acceleration and a better JS engine, Firefox 4 runs much faster for me than 3.x did. Keep that up and quit fucking with our UI!

    --
    FC Closer
    1. Re:What's wrong with a classic browser? by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      People hated the awesome bar and they hated the tabs. Maybe once you use the new interface you will see the usefulness of it as well.

      I would read the link and have an open mind. It is interesting but I just hope it is an option for people like me.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:What's wrong with a classic browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many people still hate the awesomebar. Remember, sometimes after you use an interface, you will continue to hate it. You surely can't agree that all interface changes are for the better; you should keep an open mind as well.

      I agree that an option to hide it or not is fine... an option that they didn't want to give us with their damn awesomebar.

      I'm fine with tabs on top, by the way. I'm not a reactionary against all change, just some changes.

    3. Re:What's wrong with a classic browser? by lahvak · · Score: 1

      Classic browser? You mean like Lynx? Lynx never had an URL bar.

      --
      AccountKiller
    4. Re:What's wrong with a classic browser? by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      You can not make everybody happy and never will. I think that you need to get a grip on what an open mind means. People are hating on this without ever using it and a lot without even reading about what they are trying to do. That is not having an open mind. Frankly it doesn't sound great to me but until I see a beta of it and try it I will give it a chance.
      I really don't understand why anyone hates the awesome bar how does it every make more work for the user or slow them down?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    5. Re:What's wrong with a classic browser? by LocalH · · Score: 1

      Classic GUI browser, then. And don't go trudging up stuff like WorldWideWeb or Erwise. I mean the classic style browser that came into play with Mosaic (or around that time) and has been more or less the same basic layout. As I mentioned before, I like tabs-on-top, and the awesomebar (which I initially disliked) is sound. But removing the URL bar completely? Even if we can get it back up with a click or two (as Google proposes), something as vital to the core of browsing as a URL bar should not appear and disappear.

      --
      FC Closer
    6. Re:What's wrong with a classic browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I understand tabs on top from a hierarchical perspective, but in terms of UX, I switch between tabs far more often than I type new locations, so having the tabs closer to the content makes more sense for me. Not to mention if I'm already on the keyboard I can just Ctrl-L and it doesn't matter how far away from the content the location bar is.

  10. When you lack inspiration.... by avandesande · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you lack inspiration, fix something that isn't broken!

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
    1. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But with mozilla it's , "when you don't want to bother with working on the pile of bug reports to fix the problems that have been there for a while.... Work on a new shiny!

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

      When you lack inspiration, fix something that isn't broken!

      Sadly, this seems to be exactly the philosophy of the Firefox developers. Along with "we must imitate everything Google Chrome does".

    3. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is broken, unless you've never used a 1366x768 12" laptop. Or is it the laptop that's broken?

      FF 3 is plain ridiculous on aforementioned laptop, and Chrome 12 still isn't perfect.

    4. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you lack inspiration, fix something that isn't broken!

      How about fixing some of the big memory leaks?

      How about allowing me (the admin user) to REMOVE (not disable) plugins entirely from the web browser easily? For example, I have to have java on some computers for development reasons, but since java doesn't have the best security record, I want the web browser to do absolutely nothing with java, and to prevent regular users running firefox with java.

      Unfortunately, firefox assumes that since java is on the computer, that I want to run java in the web browser.

    5. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking A.

      The ONE bug that's been pissing me off since day one of using FF is the one that doesn't remember your settings when you click on links that aren't html pages or images, ie pdf files, bas files, zip etc. and asks if you want to save or run it with a program and the fucking browser still can't remember you clicked on the do this every time selection, and this fucking bug made it to FF 4, what the fuck?!?

    6. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But with mozilla it's , "when you don't want to bother with working on the pile of bug reports to fix the problems that have been there for a while.... Work on a new shiny!

      Actually, it's more like "But with mozilla it's , "when you don't want to bother with working on the pile of bug reports to fix the problems that have been there for a while.... Work on a new turd, claim it's a new shiny, and ignore the inevitable backlash when people don't believe you".

    7. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not just Mozilla. The same could be said about the new shiny and less usable ribbons in Microsoft and Adobe products, or Ubuntu's new Unity gui.

      When devs run out of ideas for real improvements they frequently seem to be fixing what's not broken, going for the shiny over the useful, basically just rearranging titanic desk chairs.

    8. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by roman_mir · · Score: 2

      For Google's Chrome having URL address bar in the window IS broken.

      They do not want you to be able to type in a URL and go around their wonderful search engine. Of-course this means they will exclude a very large number of people and businesses from their user base, who do not need to find the site they are going to, they know where they are going and if the site is not indexed by Google's search engine, then these people can't even get there, but Google doesn't care, they just want the majority of users to flow through their site for more ad revenue.

      When a generic browser, like FF does this though, it shows that either they are clueless about who the users are, or they are also in on it with the search engines, but they are making the Internet unusable for business.

      I predict that there will be at some point a browser, that will provide access to all the necessary features that Internet allows in the first place, but maybe this browser won't be free as in beer. Of-course it already exists - Opera. As FF ad-on contributor it saddens me, but as a person with a business based on users being able to type a URL address rather than use Google search to get there, it saddens me even more, but at least I will be able to recommend Opera, especially now, that it's available for GNU/Linux platform.

    9. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      And on slashdot, its "make snide comment about article that I didnt even read, and hope for a +5 insightful".

      Noone at Mozilla is working on this, noone @ Mozilla has even indicated its a plan. This is a bloggers opinion; he is a blogger who happens to be a extension author, but thats about the extent of his influence on the process.

    10. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by steelfood · · Score: 1

      Maybe they're addressing the bug reports by removing features.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    11. Re:When you lack inspiration.... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      And LordLimecat does not know ANYTHING about mozilla. There are bugs that have been here for TWO major version numbers. they pulled out this 4.0 major change over without bothering to fix a lot of the bugs that cause issues to a lot of people or are plain old rookie mistakes that they let hang because they dont want to bother with fixing it.

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Security&resolution=---

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Preferences&resolution=---

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Tabbed%20Browser&resolution=---

      Honestly Firefox could crush the others if they focused on speed, reliability, and limited bugs.

      And they need to rat out the plugins that cause issues. the browser should be telling me that "Adblock plus is slowing down your session, we recommend disabling it until they get around to fixing it" (For example as the last version before current had a major issue that was freezing firefox.)

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  11. Fork for sane people? by KFT · · Score: 2

    So how about a fork of Firefox for sane people? Just some defaults tweaked.

    Some suggestions
    - Ask me where I want to save things instead of just dumping things in a folder
    - URL bar with konqueror style commands like 'ggm:' for google maps, 'gg' for google, 'imdb' for imdb...
    - One click pass through when an SSL certificate doesn't match (yes, tell me, but probably I knew this already)
    - One click toggle of plugins
    - history off by default (who uses that?)

    Anything else?

    1. Re:Fork for sane people? by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Anything else?

      Firefox 4 broke the ability to display a table as it is being generated line-by-line, leaving the user staring at a blank browser for as long as it takes to emit the </TABLE> tag. That's REALLY annoying, especially for reports that take a while.

      It took me a little while to figure out how to put the tabs back on top of the page, instead of on top of the URL bar; I'd add that to your list of things for sane people.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    2. Re:Fork for sane people? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

      - Ask me where I want to save things instead of just dumping things in a folder

      That option already exists, and has for a long time. Tools -> Options -> General -> Always ask me where to save files

      - history off by default (who uses that?)

      I do. A lot.

      So how about a fork of Firefox for sane people?

      I have thought the same thing for a long time. I would love to see a fork of Firefox that undoes all the stupid bullshit and all the "we have to imitate Google Chrome" nonsense. However, if you spend some time with Firefox's train-wreck source code (some of which dates back to 1999), and the insanely complicated, convoluted build process that would make Rube Goldberg vomit, you will quickly lose interest in creating your own fork of Firefox.

    3. Re:Fork for sane people? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      This would be called the "Not and idiot" mode... it should require some basic math to enable it to keep the typical idiot from accidentally enabling it.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    4. Re:Fork for sane people? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 0

      This would be called the "Not and idiot" mode...

      There's something slightly ironic here.

    5. Re:Fork for sane people? by J_Darnley · · Score: 1

      URL bar with konqueror style commands like 'ggm:' for google maps, 'gg' for google, 'imdb' for imdb...

      Firefox started with those commands, then they disappeared. Thankfully I still have my bookmarks from the 1.x era so I still have them. Try looking at the "keyword" feature of bookmarks.

    6. Re:Fork for sane people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it's called the auto correct on the iphone or android... it does strange things.

    7. Re:Fork for sane people? by vlm · · Score: 1

      Have you considered that some people in the Mozilla project might be getting paid to destroy firefox for "sane people" thus forcing everyone back on MSIE?

      This is the only reasonable explanation for their recent horrific UI decisions...

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    8. Re:Fork for sane people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      - Ask me where I want to save things instead of just dumping things in a folder

      Already in Firefox.

      - URL bar with konqueror style commands like 'ggm:' for google maps, 'gg' for google, 'imdb' for imdb...

      Already in Firefox.

      - One click pass through when an SSL certificate doesn't match (yes, tell me, but probably I knew this already)

      I disagree, but fair enough.

      - One click toggle of plugins

      It's already just a few clicks. Are you suggesting that a list of plugins (with toggle buttons) be displayed all the time so you can disable them with 1-click? Strongly disagree.

      - history off by default (who uses that?)

      Anything else?

      Seriously? I think you are by far in the minority on that one.

    9. Re:Fork for sane people? by vlm · · Score: 1

      This would be called the "Not and idiot" mode... it should require some basic math to enable it to keep the typical idiot from accidentally enabling it.

      I have often wondered why there are no OS that I'm aware of that have variable strength captchas for user access....

      OK you wanna accept a self signed SSL cert that happens to match your kerberos (or dns or whatever) domain? Fine you gotta "solve" 2+2.

      You wanna edit your network settings, integrate this simple polynomial.

      You wanna run fdisk as a non admin user, "prove that x**n + y**n = z**n only has solutions where n=2"

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    10. Re:Fork for sane people? by Megane · · Score: 1

      Yep, I have one set up with keyword "g", and a location of "http://google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s".

      The bonus is no stupid live search to distract me while typing. (Some of us don't look at our fingers while we type.)

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    11. Re:Fork for sane people? by KFT · · Score: 1

      That's what I said, tweak the defaults. I know you can change the options or install plugins... however, that gets really tiresome if you use enough different machines.

    12. Re:Fork for sane people? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Tools Options General Always ask me where to save files.

    13. Re:Fork for sane people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh my god I hope you had that pun in mind when you wrote this because it is absolutely delicious. Kudos.

    14. Re:Fork for sane people? by BenoitRen · · Score: 1

      Try SeaMonkey (http://www.seamonkey-project.org/). Same technology, saner interface.

  12. Mozilla relevance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are they even around any more?
    After Chrome came out I thought they just vanished from the planet.

  13. derp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    like search?

  14. I don't get it by Uthic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really don't get what's the problem with the URL bar. I don't buy that reasoning that it's "confusing" for people to see an URL or that it eats up too much space. If they must follow through with this ridiculous idea hopefully they'll put in an option to keep it (nothing wrong with allowing customization) - or an addon for it will be made.

    1. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      URL bars can be very confusing -- Whenever Im using my (norwegian) bank service it seems to show a russian domain for some reason.

    2. Re:I don't get it by smoothnorman · · Score: 1

      I don't get it either. I was hoping someone here in the comment-zone would have some insight into what's so @#$!'n wrong with having an URL bar, (so far no luck). It reminds me of an old vaudeville routine where a advertisement or contract (e.g. A Night at the Opera ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFqFp1FKrEc/) is torn away bit by bit for vague reasons and ends up with nothing.

    3. Re:I don't get it by Rockoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really don't get what's the problem with the URL bar.

      The problem with the URL bar is that it doesnt always send people directly to Google.

      FACT: The majority of Mozilla revenue comes directly from Google payments to be the default search engine.
      FACT: The current default search deal, extended for 3 more years in august 2008, ends this year.
      FACT: Mozilla big-wigs would see substantial paycuts if this deal isnt renewed.

      End of story.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry, just get some of what Mozilla's smoking and it'll be obvious! And if you still don't get it, you can marvel at the pink elephants.

    5. Re:I don't get it by CyberDragon777 · · Score: 1

      FACT: If Google doesn't renew the search deal, Bing gains a few hundred million users overnight.

      End of story.

      --
      We both said a lot of things that you are going to regret.
    6. Re:I don't get it by vlm · · Score: 1

      that it eats up too much space.

      If that were true, they'd get rid of the ability to install all those stupid toolbars that lusers always have about 5 of on their browsers. Amongst a certain lower class of knowledge, it seems nearly mandatory to have about five toolbars taking up about two inches of vertical space on the browser, claiming no idea how they got there, why they got there, or what they do. Kind of like the situation of good luck finding someone in the societal lower classes that doesn't smoke.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    7. Re:I don't get it by GuldKalle · · Score: 1

      A lot of Joe sixpacks have given up on parsing URLs completely, and I don't see that changing, with or without URL bars. And I don't really blame them when site managers often spew all kinds of organizational nonsense and useless query names into it.
      So the security argument of keeping the URL bar is mostly moot. Those who knows how to parse an URL are going to enable the url bar anyway, and those who don't notice it's gone could not use it to spot phising anyway.
      I'd recommend a bar with only the two top levels of the domain name visible - no http, no path and no query params. Now regular people can actually see what is going on, and perhaps even recognize the name from a commercial.

      --
      What?
    8. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will always always be able to have a URL bar if you really want one. If you're in the minority though be pepared to work for it rather than having someone else give it you!

    9. Re:I don't get it by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      If by "mozilla bigwigs" you mean some blogger who doesnt cut a paycheck from mozilla at all, who has no impact on the development process, then yea.

      FACT: you didnt read the article
      FACT: you have no idea what youre talking about, and lost a ton of credibility when you started talking about "Mozilla big-wigs"

    10. Re:I don't get it by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      FACT: you didnt read the article

      Perhaps your confusion on this matter is because your URL bar is hiding what site you are on. This is slashdot... we dont read the fucking article.

      FACT: you have no idea what youre talking about

      Time will tell and then you will see that I am right, but will you ever verbally admit it? Probably not, as there is too much kool-aid already in that gaping (you've got 12 posts in this article now) mouth of yours.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    11. Re:I don't get it by slyborg · · Score: 1

      The project is certainly threatened by Chrome, and has no chance to beat it given that it's Google's own browser, so these efforts to ride along on Chrome's publicity ultimately are doomed to fail. As long as Google commits resources to develop Chrome anyway. The issue is that if you have the skills to produce a browser that is on a par with Chrome, why would you not take a big salary to work ON Chrome.

      I personally think Firefox should focus on the privacy/security aspects of the experience and make it clear they are the anti-Chrome aka extension of Google's tentacles onto all aspects of your online existence. I honestly have no idea what the strategy is at Mozilla right now, and I suspect neither do they. Trying to be some kind of cuddlier but much slower version of Chrome is very 'wut?' to me.

  15. I'm getting out of user support, now. by tverbeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Crap, another move to ensure that new users will never understand how their computers work.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    1. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      That happened around 1984 so why are you crabbing about it now?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Myopic · · Score: 1

      If you can explain (from memory) how engine timing works, thus showing that you know how your car works, AND if you can explain (from memory) the correct way to hang an exterior window, thus showing that you know how your house works, AND if you can explain (from memory) how hyperthreading works, thus showing that you know how your computer works -- THEN I will begin to entertain your complaint, which I will otherwise assume is mere elitist bellyaching.

      But I definitely support you getting out of tech support. Those jobs suck.

    3. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      "If you can explain (from memory) how engine timing works"

      There is a computer in there that sends the signals at the pre-programmed times. Or do you want to know how the times are calculated? Well, it is a cycle of fill the piston with air, fuel, making ignition, and empting it of escaping gases, but the exact timing is a complex consequence of the characteristics of the motor. They used to be empirical, but nowadays they are for some part empirical, and for some part optimized in a computer simulation, anyway, the mechanical engineer never knew on his head how the timing comes to be, so I guess your bar is a bit too hight.

      "if you can explain (from memory) the correct way to hang an exterior window"

      Depends on the model. Well, I guess you are from the US and use houses made of wood, no idea how to build a window on a house made of wood. On a brick house you keep the hole open by putting some wood at its top (a bit of concrete there may help or not, depending on the window), and then fix the window with concrete and a bit of steel. If you are feeling poor, you can put some bricks in it. While the concrete dries the window must be supported by wood.

      "if you can explain (from memory) how hyperthreading works"

      Hyperthreading is a marketing driven technology, where a scalar processor (or core) has two fetchers and use them to simulate a superscalar one, then the two fetchers resolve concurrency problems, so 90% of the time one of them is waiting for a clock cycle to pass so it can execute its instruction, the exception being the cycles you parse a slow instruction, like a memory or floating point operation. Marginaly usefull on badly designed instruction sets, like the x86, because slow intructions are way more common in them.

      Now, may I complain? Somehow people can know if the instructions they give their cars will destroy them, but they don't know that the instructions they give their computers will infect them. Please explain why without being an elitist bellyaching.

    4. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by tverbeek · · Score: 1

      As soon as you can demonstrate that you know why your counterargument is a cheap rhetorical cheat, I'll entertain a sound one. Otherwise I'll just assume you're as myopic as your username.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    5. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is it "elitist" to suggest that ordinary users should be able to handle the URLs and don't need to have those hidden from them? The people who keep foisting condescending hand-holding measures like this (AOL keywords warmed over), like replacing on-screen status updates with spinning wheels that don't "confuse" the user with actual information... the people who conspire to make everything look like magic that the user couldn't possibly understand.... those are the elitist cunts who make tech support jobs suck.

    6. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't as bad in 1984?

    7. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Ltap · · Score: 1

      I agree. The main issue I see with this, one of the most venerable of car analogies, is that it's a false equivalency -- people don't need to know how their cars run because cars (in terms of what they can do) are fairly simple tools. No matter how complex they are under the hood, their operation isn't very complex. Comparing a car to a computer is like comparing a hammer to a table saw; it just makes no sense. Even if you can do lots of things with hammers (or cars), their basic function is fairly simple. To highlight how stupid the analogy is, saying that people shouldn't need to know how to type in a URI to use a browser is like saying people shouldn't need to know how to turn the ignition key to start their car and a good workaround is to buy a robot that turns the key for you. It isn't a matter of knowing "how" things work or what's under the hood, but understanding the basic functionality of the tool you are using. Sure, you can go under the hood and become an auto mechanic or Linux/BSD user, but even so, if you say you can use that tool you should be able to grasp one of its most basic functions: to go from place to place without relying on a search engine.

      The fact simply is that no matter how much people want computers to be like simple appliances, they will never be unless all functionality is restricted and they essentially become a child's toy. If people want to use a complex tool, they need to accept the responsibility for its use.

      --
      Yet Another Tech Blog
      (but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
      http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
    8. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Myopic · · Score: 1

      I accept your apology. Thank you, and good luck.

    9. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Myopic · · Score: 1

      Right. The way you explained those things is about how I would explain them, except for hyperthreading which I frankly don't know much about. And, the point is that you didn't explain them very well (except for hyperthreading, which was very informative), nor would I. Actually I can explain engine timing a bit better than you did -- I was thinking more about how to advance or retard timing, and the effects that has on engine performance. Hanging windows is also more complicated than you explained, with extra steps and materials used to prevent water from coming in around the edges; I once had some of it explained to me by a lawyer friend who sues contractors who do that incorrectly.

      And yet here we are, driving cars, looking out windows, and using multi-threaded applications, all without really knowing how that stuff works. What a grand world! Me, I like the URL bar, and I type into it regularly. I'll choose to see mine, thank you very much, but I'm not going to sit around and act all indignant that my preferences are over-ruled by the majority of users who don't use the bar the same way I do.

    10. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by Myopic · · Score: 1

      It is elitist to claim that people should know how how their computer works, when really almost nobody understands how computers work, nor do they understand how most of their technology works. There is a sliding scale of what details are shown to the user, and it's meaningless to say that there is a bright line that somehow is now being crossed with the URL bar. Hey, guess what, browsers don't have screens showing heap dumps either. Yeah, you want to see the URL bar, and I want to see the heap dumps, and most users don't want to see either one. It's hardly a "move to ensure that new users will never understand how their computers work".

    11. Re:I'm getting out of user support, now. by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      All of those are more complicate than what I've written. I've never messed with engine timing, so I know only the basics. I've acompanied quite a few window hangings, but around here most people just do that when it won't rain, our weather is quite predictable.

      Ok, that is just to clarify a bit. I still wonder how is it so that people must know what will destroy their cars, but when it is about computers it is just ok to not know. And, no, it is not completely explained by safety concerns. And yes, a few people don't know what to do with their cars, but we do expect them to know (and most do know).

  16. And these stupid CLIs! by boristdog · · Score: 1

    Let's get rid of all typing! Just click on pretty pictures for everything! No one actually needs a keyboard.

    1. Re:And these stupid CLIs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next thing you know, we'll be using with hyroglifics and pictograms.

    2. Re:And these stupid CLIs! by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      Although I understand your sentiment, the article proposes replacing *all* control interfaces with a single command line where people type in natural language, because you know, natural language is completely unambiguous and verbose typing is more efficient and intuitive than clicking menu options--or pictures.

                -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
    3. Re:And these stupid CLIs! by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 1

      Let's get rid of all typing! Just click on pretty pictures for everything! No one actually needs a keyboard.

      That sounds like Opera's Speed Dial... It's good. But it would suck if there were no URL bar.

    4. Re:And these stupid CLIs! by Avalon73 · · Score: 1

      Next thing you know, we'll be using with hyroglifics and pictograms.

      Otherwise known as "icons"? :-)

  17. Just....no by Windwraith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't do it Mozilla. Don't lose your identity. Don't f*ck with users just to copy another browser. Another browser that is popular because of internal stuff rather than interface.
    Why not copying the GOOD aspects of Chrome? You know, the stuff Chrome fans like to point out, like speed and such.

    1. Re:Just....no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The damage is near done to me. More and more I am looking at Firefox and having flashbacks to Netscape when the main reason to use it was "Not IE" for me.

      I am digging IE and Chrome for different tasks. Firefox... more and more I feel like I am only using it about of habit.

    2. Re:Just....no by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 2

      When Firefox was first announced it seemed like a great idea: a very fast, stripped down browser with as few built-in features as possible. Everything else could be added by extensions! The devs could add the features as extensions installed by default, and if you don't like that feature you disable the extension.
      That didn't happen. Instead they added features to the core, and firefox is slowly turning back into seamonkey.

      --
      Not a sentence!
    3. Re:Just....no by steelfood · · Score: 1

      That would require too much work. It'd require the complete re-engineering of what's running under the hood. They might as well write a completely new browser then.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  18. Enough already by Kabloink · · Score: 2

    "Secondly, it’s hard to read, since people don’t really understand URLs"

    Do we always have to cater to the lowest common denominator. At this rate we will have nothing but a browser sidebar with predefined url buttons to the most popular social sites.

    --
    "Thbbft!" - Bill the Cat
    1. Re:Enough already by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

      As long as the list of sites was configurable, I expect that a lot of users would really like that. I mean, how many different sites do you hit on a typical day, really? More to the point, how many sites does your non-technical mom use on a typical day?

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  19. All this... by kikito · · Score: 1

    While the Downloads are looking at them from that Ugly Default External Window.

    Fix that instead, Mozilla.

  20. NO! by Simulant · · Score: 1

    This is what I call "pulling a Microsoft", or dumbing down your interface to the point where a professional can't use it. Please don't. You will just end up producing ignorant users.

  21. Functionality already exists by Avalon73 · · Score: 1

    Why do anything with it? You can already remove the URL bar from Firefox if you want to. That's what the "Customize Toolbars" menu option is all about. If they do muck around with it, then I don't have an objection as long as there's an option to bring it back, as there are with the menu and status (er, 'scuse me, add-on) bars.

  22. Mozilla Considering a "TaskBar" by ohnocitizen · · Score: 2

    An anonymous Firefox dev has suggested adding a futuristic "TaskBar" to replace to old fashioned URL Bar. "Imagine, it could house a menu, tabs, perhaps widgets like a clock or volume control... ". This new bar might be moved to the bottom of the screen to maximize usability. "We ran extensive user tests - selecting our users randomly from a large pool of Gnome 3 enthusiasts and Unity developers alike".
    When reached for comment, reps from competing browsers had this to say:
    IE: "Hawt."
    Safari: "Who needs any sort of bar? You should be able to control your browser simply by caressing the screen with predefined strokes."
    Chrome: "Oh yeah? In our next version the TaskBar and Menu will each run in their own process! Eat THAT Mozilla."

  23. No more dial on radio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just presets.

    that point to their stations.

    1. Re:No more dial on radio by kvezach · · Score: 1
  24. How about fixing the URL Bar instead by zzsmirkzz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who the hell wants the URL bar removed (other than spammers/phishers/scammers)?? Seriously, isn't that the best practice to prevent phishing attacks is to manually type the URL of the website you are trying to connect to?? What are they thinking? Not too mention being able to verify the site you are on, easily copy/paste links, etc.

    What should be done is to increase the functionality of the URL bar. The one thing that always pisses me off and should be fixed is not allowing a web page to steal the focus from the URL bar. I don't know how many times I've started typing in a URL only to have the Yahoo or Google bar steal the focus 3-5 characters in. Improve it, don't remove it.

    1. Re:How about fixing the URL Bar instead by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Webpage-JS can steal focus from URLbar / chrome
      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125282 Resolved Fixed
      Content still can steal focus from chrome by window.focus();
      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=604289 ASSIGNED

    2. Re:How about fixing the URL Bar instead by bluescrn · · Score: 1

      How about bringing the status bar back, too! The FF4 UI changes were one fail after another. The 3.x UI was fine, and FF4 simply removed/broke some standard and rather good functionality. The biggies being the loss of the status bar, and visual brokenness of the menu bar (under Windows, at least) when you turn it back on, to lose the nasty non-standard FF menu button. I'm still running FF3.6, and have even tried IE as a possible replacement for the alien and unwanted UI changes that FF4 brought...

    3. Re:How about fixing the URL Bar instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the best practice to prevent phishing attacks is to manually type the URL of the website you are trying to connect to?

      That's just the second best approach, since it's prone to lead to typo-domains. Use your Bookmarks.

  25. Intranet by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    How do you connect to sites on an Intranet without a location bar. I don't want a google search of my intranet, for my dev products.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Intranet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intra-what? What is this? 2010?

  26. Microsoft-ian? by bp+m_i_k_e · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This reminds me of the dubious decision to hide file name extensions in Windows Explorer by default - you know, since users don't really need that information.

    1. Re:Microsoft-ian? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're supposed to pay attention to the more informative Type column in Windows Explorer instead. If you're renaming a file, it also keeps you from inadvertently changing the filename extension.

    2. Re:Microsoft-ian? by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Or purposely changing the file extension, which is often why people call me to do something they can't. "The instructions say, 'Rename blah.ext to blah.ext.old and then download a new blah.ext.'

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    3. Re:Microsoft-ian? by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

      You mean the completely useless Windows feature that gets overridden by programs such as anything from Adobe?

      Instead of seeing "GIF file", "JPEG file", etc, all you see is a stupid "Adobe Photoshop file".

      The "type" column is just a patch for not displaying the file extension in the first place.

  27. Imitation is the Best Form of Flattery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Either that, or great minds think a like. Seriously though. This isn't that revolutionary. Mobile browsers hide the URL bar to try and save real estate on tiny tiny phone screens. www.awkwardengineer.com

  28. The real purpose by ErikTheRed · · Score: 1

    The real purpose for Google putting everything into one entry box is that everything you type gets turned into a search, and therefore gets sent to Google. It adds a very significant amount of data to their user search information database - essentially monetizing everything you type up there (Microsoft does this with IE as well). My guess is that Mozilla is getting something under the table for this as well. Fork time?

    --

    Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
    1. Re:The real purpose by LQ · · Score: 1

      The real purpose for Google putting everything into one entry box is that everything you type gets turned into a search, and therefore gets sent to Google

      I'm a keyboarder rather than a mouser so I know C-L takes me to the address bar with autocomplete from history and bookmarks, C-K to search. C-L plus a few letters is a lot faster than a bookmarks menu. C-T,C-K is probably one of my most used key combos. Either way, they can hide the bar when not in use as long as I can get there via a handy shortcut.

    2. Re:The real purpose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fad of touch computing is retarding the way knowlegable users interact with their software. I wouldn't ascribe a profit motive to something that the arrogant, short-sighted stupidity of usability designers explains perfectly well.

      Here's another example: With firefox4, the document has focus on a new tab (Ctrl-t) rather than the URL bar. I now have to alt-tab twice to enter a URL. Under what possible circumstances would an empty document ever be required to receive focus... WTF? It could be something to do with drag-n-drop, more likely it's carelessness -- either way it's irritating.

    3. Re:The real purpose by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but my search box on Firefox has about a dozen different options--Google is the first, but I can also directly search Wikipedia, IMBD, the Internet Archive, the Debian package repository, Youtube, Allmusic, Yahoo, Amazon, Creative Commons, Facebook, Netflix, etc., all without going to Google or using the URL bar. As it happens, these are all implemented by transforming the text I enter into the search bar into a URL. I could make a null option that didn't do any transformation at all, and the result would be pretty much the same as I have now with two text entry fields, except I'd only need one.

      The complaints about how this would make it harder to detect phishing are legitimate: if you have to push extra keys to see what site you actually ended up on, it does indeed make you a little more vulnerable to phishing (although I suspect most people don't know how to detect this even if the URL is plainly visible), but the idea that this forces all web access to go through Google is simply incorrect.

  29. Remember when Mozilla was about the users? by voss · · Score: 1

    User plug-ins...buttons where users wanted them....themes..

  30. God Dammit by The+O+Rly+Factor · · Score: 1

    And I just finished the long and arduous process of teaching a dozen of my relatives older than 40 what a phishing attack is and how to spot it.

    Thanks for making my life miserable again, Mozilla.

  31. Any GOOD reason? by demonbug · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This from the article:

    “The location bar has to go. It has many problems. For one, it’s always visible and constantly takes up a large amount of space. Secondly, it’s hard to read, since people don’t really understand URLs. Moreover, it’s modal: it has a mode for displaying the current page’s location and a mode for entering your next destination. It’s not always immediately obvious which mode you’re in and what the current text is indicating, and switching modes is not easy either."

    That is the stupidest thing I've read in a while. Really? The URL bar takes up too much space? It is slightly larger than one line of text. If they aer so concerned about saving space, maybe they should get rid of the title bar and the little mozilla icon in the corner - that is a hell of a lot less useful than the URL bar. Sure, hiding the bar might be a great idea on a smart phone or something with severely limited screen real estate, but to apply this across the board as the default is just stupid.

    The URL is hard to read? Seriously? It tells you the address of the page you are looking at. That's pretty damn simple. Yes, it is a long string of characters, which I'm sure offends graphic designers everywhere (which seem to be the people driving the current rash of browser UI changes - screw usability, it has to look "nice"), but it really is a simple way to tell you what you are looking at.

    It isn't always obvious if you are entering the next destination or looking at your current location? Really? There are people that click in the bar, start typing a new address, and then forget what they are doing and think that the address they just (partially) typed is what they are looking at right now? That argument simply doesn't make any sense.

    Mozilla seems to have a serious case of me-too-itis lately. Chrome's version is increasing too fast? Fine, we'll start pumping out new version numbers to compete - yeah, 4.0 just came out, that's okay; this next version we'll just call 5.0 instead of the 4.0.4 that it really is. We'll catch up in no time! Chrome offers the option to hide the URL bar? Hah! Those losers! We're going to get rid of it entirely because we're awesome like that! Here's some made-up BS to justify it even though approximately zero users want this!

    1. Re:Any GOOD reason? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or just have a logarithmic version scale..

    2. Re:Any GOOD reason? by aaron552 · · Score: 1

      If they aer so concerned about saving space, maybe they should get rid of the title bar and the little mozilla icon in the corner - that is a hell of a lot less useful than the URL bar.

      They did that in 4, they moved the tabs to the title bar

      but it really is a simple way to tell you what you are looking at.

      So is the page title. One of these is redundant

      Hah! Those losers! We're going to get rid of it entirely because we're awesome like that! Here's some made-up BS to justify it even though approximately zero users want this!

      If you RTFA, you'd see that that's exactly not what is being suggested. He's suggesting the the URL bar be replaced with a hidden-by-default generic command box which can do much more than the URL bar (kind of like Chrome's Omnibar)

      --
      I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
  32. Location bar by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Secondly, itâ(TM)s hard to read, since people donâ(TM)t really understand URLs.

    Really? On what planet?
    I submit to you this: If someone doesn't understand a URL after all this time, then they don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the basic workings of the Internet.
    My concern is this: that this path leads to a "Playskool" internet browser, that may be fine and dandy for 6-year-olds and great-grandma, but that will frustrate the rest of us. If you must insist on taking this path, then at least give us the option to turn the URL bar back on if we want it.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  33. Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by dondelelcaro · · Score: 1

    Most everyone who uses vimperator has their browser configured to not use an URL bar. I personally don't miss it at all.

    --
    http://www.donarmstrong.com
    1. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by kikito · · Score: 1

      Yeah, those 10 aren't affected. :P

    2. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by swordgeek · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, and how ARE the six of you doing? :-)

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    3. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But you still /see/ the url at the bottom. That makes a big difference.

    4. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I'm sure both users of vimperator are very happy with it.

      WTF does that have to do with anyone else?

    5. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Oh there's an URL bar all right, it's right above the text input bar. See the URL?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    6. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, all 5 people who use it aren't going to miss the URL bar.

    7. Re:Vimperator :set gui=none,addons,tabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, to be fair, vimperator does show the url most of the time. BTW, if you like vimperator, do check out its apparently-more-actively-developed fork, pentadactyl.

  34. Designers gone dumb by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

    Computers have been around for decades; many interface designs were tried, and we have a pretty good clue about what works and what does not. But lately it seems that everyone has decided to ignore this knowledge and just try to make things flashy. Those morons may think they'll attract a new userbase this way, but actually will just alienate the one they already have.

  35. Return of The Command Line? by Dr_Ish · · Score: 1

    Once upon a time, in the days of yore, we had something fairly similar to what it sounds like they are proposing: The Command Line. A recent slashdot.org post even demonstrated the concept for younger folks who cannot remember back that far back. While there is new rhetoric about commands being issuable in putative 'natural language', this is something that has been heard before, with diminishing plausibility. So, why does Mozilla insist on going backwards? I like the URL bar. If they do away with it, I'll just have to find an add-on to bring it back. So, I think that this is silly.

  36. Same guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the same people who decided to remove the status bar, isn't it?

  37. His face when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...he hits F11.

  38. Makes perfect sense - NOT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean, who doesn't want to replace the readily-editable standard text box that's the URL bar with an interface where you have to, "hover over the current location or a link in a web page and hold Alt."? That's TOTALLY something that I would think to do, not to mention how completely easy it is to perform on a touch-input device or with the keyboard alone...

  39. Widescreen by PPalmgren · · Score: 1

    I think the URL bar ideas stem from the reduction of vertical screen real estate, primarily as a result of the Widescreen adoption. Rather than using the same vertical resolution, screens have smushed down on average, making vertical real estate extremely valuable. This problem is also exacerbated by the ubiquity of tabs. Unfortunately, there's no good way to make text vertical, so I think that's where this idea comes from.

    Maybe they could just make it like the default menu bar settings in a lot of new browsers, where they don't appear until you press alt? That way you aren't getting rid of it but allow more real estate for those that need it. Of course, this is already an option so maybe they are trying to be more extreme in their attempts to get rid of it. A rollover on the left side of the screen that pops out with a bar for both search and URL could be a possibility.

    1. Re:Widescreen by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Two trends that make me want to screen.
      Wide screen monitors are great for watching movies and playing games but not for reading text.
      Combine that with.
      Websites that have a fixed width design!
      Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.............

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  40. Rapid Keyword Searches by dhj · · Score: 1

    Replace the URL bar with a tool to support more than just one command? Isn't that what keyword searches are for? I find the firefox URL bar to be extremely useful when combined with keyword searches. Here's how:

    Go to any search field for instance the google search box, right click and choose "Add a Keyword for this Search...".

    Give the search a single character "keyword" (eg g for google).

    Now when you want to do a search you can do the following sequence:

    Ctl-L # access the URL bar
    Keyword [SEARCH TERMS] # eg "g slashdot" will perform a google search for slashdot

    These are some of the keyword searches I use most often:

    p for pubmed
    g for google
    gs for google scholar
    gm for google maps
    w for wikipedia
    d for duckduckgo
    ed for english dictionary
    sd for spanish dictionary

    The URL bar is by far the most useful feature of Firefox!

    1. Re:Rapid Keyword Searches by morgauxo · · Score: 1

      Sweet, thanks! Now I can have gg: for google so that firefox works the same as kde/konqueror! I used to type that into Firefox by habit all the time!

    2. Re:Rapid Keyword Searches by xhrit · · Score: 1

      Konqueror is imo such a more useful tool then firefox. On other people's machines I need like 8 different apps open just to match the functionality of what konq does, let alone the features like window panes that no other browser supports.

  41. 'tis bonkers by Mike+Mentalist · · Score: 1

    After 10 years or so of evangelical promotion of web browsers in some quarters - Firefox advocates can be almost as mental as Apple fans - it seems that we have ground to a halt in terms of advances but no-one is willing to admit it.

    The Firefox and Chrome lot have put so much effort and capital into their brands that they can't stop farting new versions out any more. They have plateaued like MS Office did in 2000.

    --
    I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
  42. Please read TFA by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 2

    I haven't seen so much unjustified criticism from so many people who so poorly understand the topic since... well, this being /., I guess it was yesterday.

    But anyway, please read the article. It does not say what you think it says, if you only read the summary.

    --

    Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

    1. Re:Please read TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we have to only read the summary. if everyone RTFA there would be less misunderstanding and far fewer comments so slashdot would not get anywhere near as many ad impressions from people reading the comments. Follow the money.

    2. Re:Please read TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's talking about Ubiquity. I read the article, and all the criticism are valid and do apply even if you only read the summary. I'll explain it simply:

      Stop fucking with the user interface in radical ways. No, I don't want to have to scroll around the page to see the URL of the page. No, I don't want to hold Alt down and select a menu item every time I want to open a new URL. I want a spot that displays the current page's URL, and another spot where I can type in a URL to get to next, and that spot should not auto-search or do anything else fancy other than what I specifically entered. No, I don't want it to go to Google or Bing when it doesn't find the page and auto-search for the URL it thinks I tried to reach, thus padding the pockets of the ad-revenue search sites.

      And yes, the summary is pretty much accurate.

    3. Re:Please read TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But anyway, please read the article. It does not say what you think it says, if you only read the summary.

      RTFA? On Slashdot? You must be new here.

  43. I'll say what we're ALL thinking... by Thud457 · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hitler didn't have a URL bar.

    Come on MozDevs, do you really want to be like Hitler?!!!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:I'll say what we're ALL thinking... by lennier · · Score: 1

      Hitler didn't have a URL bar.

      He didn't have many hitpoints, either. Worst final boss ever.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    2. Re:I'll say what we're ALL thinking... by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 1

      First they came for the plugins,
      But I did not speak out, for I was not a developer...

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
  44. Let me take a stab at it by future+assassin · · Score: 1

    They remove the browser bar so that if I want to enter the sites address I can hit the home button and be taken to an address field page of their own design that is filled with advertising.

    IF you must why not just replace it with a small button or a mouse over action that shows/hides the address bar? How hard is that?

    But hey thanks for making the next generation of internet users dependent on you.

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
    1. Re:Let me take a stab at it by Homburg · · Score: 1

      IF you must why not just replace it with a small button or a mouse over action that shows/hides the address bar? How hard is that?

      Oh, wait, that's exactly what TFA proposes.

  45. Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I sort of like how my android browser works where the URL bar scrolls off the top with the page.

  46. Dear Google, and now Mozilla and whoever else. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Here's my feedback in simple and vulgar words so that you can unequivocally understand.

    You fucking Idiots.

    Sincerely, an ex-user of your browser.

  47. terrible idea by Deadplant · · Score: 1

    what a terrible idea.
    Why would I want to be ignorant of what URL I am loading/viewing?

    I would stop using firefox if the address bar were removed.

  48. Re:I 3 URL Bars by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    I want the electroshock thing implmented against the tard who decided that 'Chrome' (why did Google up front adopt the 'oooohh shiney thing' meme upfront for their browser??) shouldn't have a Menu bar, and that one shouldn't be available for it. Because, goddamnit, if I want to use keyboard shortcuts I should be able to use keyboard shortcuts.

    Seamonkey is the obvious choice.

  49. Not New, Not Bad by itchythebear · · Score: 1

    This really isn't that new of a feature. I've been able to do this in safari for at least a year now (command+shift+|)-that last character is a pipe, not a lowercase L. I don't understand "power users" complaining about this change either. Exactly how many of you regularly click into the url bar instead of using command+L(or ctl+L)? I imagine that functionality will still work, its just that the url bar wont show up unless you actually need to type something in it. It's nice being able to have more space dedicated to the content of the page, even if it is only 50 pixels. No usability is lost from this change.

    --
    If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
    1. Re:Not New, Not Bad by Deadplant · · Score: 1

      We want to know what server we're connected to. Particularly if we are going to post any information like logins or other form data.

  50. does anyone like this? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Does anyone like this?

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  51. Ribbon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They should replace the URL bar with a Ribbon. Then they could add the URL bar back in under some obscure tab, preferably only accessible via a dropdown menu on the side of some other unrelated button. Having done all of this, they should then make the URL bar no longer accept the Enter key and instead make the user click the Go! button which will be located underneath some other unrelated tab. Congratulations, you've just designed Office 2007.

  52. Doesn't this fly in the face... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    of the 'Two Click Rule' for UI design?

    Why would anyone desire to go through more steps to do the same thing?

    Also, doesn't this also reduce the ability of the user to be responsible for their own safe use of the browser, considering that the URI is now obfuscated from the user?

    I really hope that this is just some Ubiquity evangelist who has no real say on the future of Firefox.

  53. Why bother? by Haedrian · · Score: 1

    There's already an addon (from mozilla labs) which does that. It doesn't need to be extended more than that.

    I use it, because I prefer the extra screen space. Other people might not like it. But I actually find it very useful.

    Firefox should stick to what it does best. Addons. Its then a simple case - "You don't like the address bar? Get this addon"

    By the way in case anyone's interested - the addon is called "Less Chrome HD"

  54. ObBlame Microsoft. by istartedi · · Score: 1

    Following Google, which follows Microsoft (It is the Bing-ization of their search to which I refer) to stupidity.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  55. Removing the URL bar will decrease security! by TavisJohn · · Score: 1

    If people can't see that they have been re-directed from the site they intended to go to because of a hack or virus, than they will NOT know to NOT log into the site or give it their info!

    I WANT the bar there. I glance at it all the time to make sure I am where I think I am on the internet.

    I do not want any "other" solutions. I do not want and idiot light telling me the site is safe. I want to verify it for MYSELF.

    If it becomes an OPTION to hide the address bar, that is one thing. But do not just take it away!

  56. I'm not surprised by WD · · Score: 1

    Firefox 4 was a huge step backwards from a UI perspective (no more status bar, stupid scrolling tabs with no trivial way to shrink widths, etc.). This would be just another step in the (wrong) direction that they're going.

  57. Seamonkey by morgauxo · · Score: 1

    So seamonkey it is then...

  58. http://userfriendly.com?CRAZYCGICRAPOMGWTFI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most websites identify themselves. I really don't see the point in making the address bar a major part of the browser. It could be something that comes into view when you hover over a button or something.

    Of course, it's good to show the user what URL they are connecting to, to prevent phishing attacks and such. But just the URL up until the first ?. Don't bother displaying the protocol part. Aunt Ethel could give a damn what HTTP stands for, just show a lock if it's secure. And the root domain name should be highlighted or otherwise specially visualized so that it's clear what domain the user is connected to. The URL up until the first / should be displayed in bigger text or with more emphasis than the rest of the address.

    I think it'd be cool if a URL display worked like that of a TV channel display; i.e. show the current URL for a few seconds and then get out of the way.
    "appliance" user whose purchases keep your hardware cheap. I don't see why it needs to be displayed as part of the URL, unless you hover over it or edit the address.

  59. The problem is by dnaumov · · Score: 1

    that something ridiculous, like probably over 75% of users don't even know what an URL bar is and I wish I was kidding. A huge amount of users don't understand the concept of URLs, domains or anything of the sort and type anything and everything (both actual search queries as well as full-blown http://whatever/ URLs) into the search engine toolbar in the top-right corner of Firefox and/or IE.

  60. months ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I made a userstyle doing exactly this months ago (a few people even prefer how I've done it). http://userstyles.org/styles/45652/firefox-4-autohide-navigation-bar-alternative

  61. Take my URL BAR by G00F · · Score: 1

    I'll give you my URL Bar when you take it from my cold, dead hands!

    --
    The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
  62. Makes sense in some cases. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    When you fullscreen the url bar hides by default. I turn that off of course. By default you should have a url bar. But it makes sense to hide it for webapps. It should appear any time the site is not on your trust list. I hide the bookmark bar and I run Compact Menu 2 on all but my largest screens to get rid of the menu bar as well, so the URL bar is all I have left. That makes more sense to me but that's based on how I use the web. Unfortunately, I think that's probably true of more users than even realize it themselves, and that they will probably go ahead and make this change anyway. I for one am already annoyed with the direction the interface is going. Bookmark all tabs should still be under the bookmark menu, for example; taking that out benefited no one. I enjoy that you can access the functionality by right-clicking any tab, but I also want it to be in the menu, because that's what the menu is for.

    If the URL bar would go away when I am using sites for which it offers me nothing, that would be OK with me... on some machines. Honestly, I surf on more machines with 768 lines or less, so it would even be less work for me if it were the default. I again do feel that it makes no sense for it to go away on an untrusted site, however. As others have pointed out, seeing the domain is useful for maintaining security, and if it helps a noticeable percentage of users not get owned then that's argument enough for spending the screen real estate to me.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  63. Mozilla, Gnome, Ubuntu. They're all the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Each one of them run by people who want to leave their mark on the user base. Just like architects and town planners. They want to create something which everyone will remember and talk about forever. They couldn't care less what you want.

    Many of the open source guys have become the new Microsoft, forcing their goonish ideas onto a captive crowd whether they like it or not.

    They need to stand back, take a deep breath and really think about what they're doing and why they're doing it, because it sure looks like self indulgent, egotistical twaddle.

  64. Well shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So now mozilla's firefox joins my list of "browers that can go fuck themselves"

    So that's safari, IE, chrome, opera, and now firefox.
    ...dammit, what's left?

    1. Re:Well shit... by Elbereth · · Score: 1

      Konqueror. Out of curiousity, what do you have against Opera? I'm not a huge fan of Opera, but it seems pretty decent.

  65. This guy is nuts by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

    Apparently this is all based on a post by David Regev on a Mozilla Lab blog. It is not an official statement from Mozilla, but they don't seem to be disagreeing with it either. After reading it I can only say that he is insane. Here are some of my favorite parts:

    "The location bar has to go. It has many problems. For one, it’s always visible and constantly takes up a large amount of space."

    A lot of space? What? It's a few pixels. Are you using a 15 inch monitor from 1987?

    it’s hard to read, since people don’t really understand URLs.

    WTF?

    "it’s modal: it has a mode for displaying the current page’s location and a mode for entering your next destination. It’s not always immediately obvious which mode you’re in and what the current text is indicating"

    WTF? If you put your cursor in the URL bar and start typing something it's pretty easy to figure out what "mode" you are in.

    Regev suggests to replace the URL bar with a browse command

    LOL. The latest GUI innovation -- a command line!!

  66. Re:I 3 URL Bars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yea, but you're not an idiot who googles "youtube.com" to click on the first search result. That drives income to Google and Mozilla (when done through Firefox). Of course they're going to monetize their position by forcing you to do it that way.

  67. billy madison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I read the blog post and I am now dumber for it.

  68. Huh? by mozumder · · Score: 1

    Since when does using a browser require one to go to college?

  69. Does for Phishers what hiding ext did for Trojans by DeadCatX2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The person who decided to hide extensions by default is single-handedly responsible for a great deal of the trojans that get executed.

    And I agree, the idea of getting rid of the address bar is just terrible. It's EXTREMELY important for you to know where you are at all times in this world of multiple redirects! This will do for phishers what hiding extensions did for trojans.

    --
    :(){ :|:& };:
  70. Hey FireFox by systematical · · Score: 1

    Why don't you spend time OPTIMIZING your browser rather than including dumb little features.

  71. Stupid Decision by shellster_dude · · Score: 1

    As other's have pointed out removing the URL bar is a stupid, stupid concept because of the fact that it makes the gui more confusing, less user friendly, and the user more vulnerable to phishing. However, if Mozilla must absolutely screw up their interface, I would want the new URL bar to be integrated into each tab. The URL bar is dependent on the tab you are on, so why not make a small icon on each tab that you click to drop down the bar so the user can update the url.

    1. Re:Stupid Decision by rgviza · · Score: 1

      This would make entirely too much sense.

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
  72. Re:I 3 URL Bars by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

    I like URL bars. They're quick and easy to type into, they let me see exactly where I'm browsing at (in theory), and when it comes time to copy and paste a link it's simple.

    I do, too, and that's why my fingers automatically press ^L or cmd-L whenever I want to interact with it. I can't really think of a reason why I need it there all the time, though. Like right now. I'm on Slashdot. I don't care what the exact URL is (and can see it with a single set of keypresses or presumably a mouse click if Mozilla has their way) and that line is a waste of screen space. I don't think they're advocating getting rid of it completely, but I'd be perfectly happy for them to hide it for the 99.9% of the time when I'm not directly working with it.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  73. The sky is falling! by kiddygrinder · · Score: 1

    oh noes, if firefox do all these minor changes that a small subset of it's users don't like someone might have to get off their arse and FORK it! how will we cope!

    --
    This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
  74. prior art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    David Regev suggests that the location bar should be replaced with a tool to support more than just one command."

    Oh, you mean like KDE has been doing since at least the 3 series?

  75. amazing history suggestion by SkunkPussy · · Score: 1

    I really liked the idea in that 3rd link of displaying the history inline, i.e. above your current page, so you can just scroll up to go back. or scroll back down again to go forward.

    although having said that I dont like scrolling because you have to use a mouse to do it in a precise way.

    --
    SURELY NOT!!!!!
  76. Why? by CFBMoo1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is every software project changing its interface drastically for tablets and phones? Did desktops just fall off the face of the Earth? Seriously, get off the mobile bandwagon if your doing Desktop software and stick with Desktop design ideas. That goes for Mozilla, Gnome, and anyone else. Stop making half and half crappy designs changes and and focus up on one or the other but no half way crap that ruins the experience.

    I don't care if the UI for Gnome 3 is better for tablets and such. I don't care that you think the URL bar is too big at 33 pixels or whatever it is. Stop messing up things that work as they are. Start a new project and give the existing stuff to someone else who won't have mobile on the brain for a desktop product.

    Sorry for the rant but this is getting old watching good and decent desktop software become hybrid mobile nightmare designs.

    --
    ~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is a desktop?
      (sent from my mobile device.)

    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1

      whiners complained for years that bringing desktop interfaces to mobile devices was unusable. They were right.

      the reverse is true.

      Desktop do have decent keyboards, big screens, precise pointing devices. Use them.

  77. Scroll for History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you see the part about scrolling for history - versus back and forward - seriously no. When has scrolling in a document taken you to another document? In a doc, pdf, spreadsheet, etc - why in browser document? what is the metaphor here? Maybe a page turn metaphor would work but scrolling? no.

  78. Reason is obvious by transporter_ii · · Score: 1

    If you type in a URL, you just go there.

    If there is no URL bar, you search on google and click on the first link that comes up. Lots of people do this. But not everyone.

    First way == no tracking. Second way == stats for Google that could be sold to someone...and it went from old people who don't understand URLs, to *everyone* because there is no longer a URL bar.

    It doesn't benefit anyone but Google and other search engines. Of course Google wants you to have to search for where you want to go.

    --
    Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
  79. Makes perfect sense for Google and Mozilla... by cjjjer · · Score: 1

    Since Google would rather you *search* for something rather than go directly to a known page. Maybe Mozilla will get kickbacks from search and advertising dollars if they go along...

  80. A bad choice if they do it. by rogerdugans · · Score: 1

    The url bar is an excellent tool and takes up very little space.

    As time has gone on some developers seem to feel that a "clean" (empty) design both looks better and is easier to use. Not necessarily correct, folks.

    Having to click on an area of a title bar and choose a menu option to be able to navigate to a site is NOT easier, better or a more elegant design than simply having a url bar.

    I can understand (sort of) why Chrome is doing it- not as a better design but to get more advertising done as people resort to Google's Search to navigate to sites.
    I can not understand why Mozilla is also choosing to send users to one search site or another to navigate to web sites... unless Google or another search company is paying them a bunch of cash.

    Of course I am sure there will be at least one browser who chooses ease of use and security over "clean", bad design....

    --
    Linux computers, watercooled, photography
  81. Important Message by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

    URL bar users: Mozilla Labs Has To Go

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  82. Design a product that even an idiot can use... by Posting=!Working · · Score: 1

    FTFA:

    it (the URL bar) has a mode for displaying the current pageâ(TM)s location and a mode for entering your next destination. Itâ(TM)s not always immediately obvious which mode youâ(TM)re in and what the current text is indicating, and switching modes is not easy either.

    Clicking on a the URL bar and typing is not easy? What the hell? It's a text box, if you don't know how to work one of those, you probably shouldn't have the computer. At least we won't have to hear from those people, because they'll never be able to post anything or send any email.

    And how would adding an initial step of "Find the hidden URL bar" make it easier? You still have to click on it and start typing. If you change your mind, you'll probably still have to hit "Esc" to get the original address back.

    It's not obvious which mode you're in? Did you click on it and start typing? If not, it's the current page's location.

    It's one thing to make it usable for everyone, but when you're basing design decisions by assuming your customers are the most feeble-minded of morons, you're not helping anyone.

    --
    This sentence no verb.
  83. What the hell? by Lunaritian · · Score: 1

    The reason I use Firefox is that unlike Chrome it doesn't hide useful information to save a few pixels. Now I already need one extension to keep it the way it was before (statusbar was removed in FF4), and it looks like I will soon need more...

  84. The real reason behind this change by Prototerm · · Score: 1

    Everybody's supposed to be using a touch-screen tablet or smartphone these days. Didn't you get the tweet? Why else do you think Gnome 3 and Unity were invented? Next up, Windows 8 with an enlarged version of the Win Phone 7 tile interface to replace that old computer-desktop GUI.

    Bandwagon, anyone?

    --
    "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
  85. In other news... by Script+Cat · · Score: 1

    Auto companies will now sell cars with opaque wind shields as all driving will be done by viewing the GPS navigation device.

  86. Boring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Boring. Been surfing with camino and safari for years without the url bar. Waste of space and ugly

  87. Time past by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Innovation actually meant inventing something, not copying anything that sounds edgy. Browsers have always imitated each other. Literally even, when you consider the whole user agent thing. Now, this expands to graphical interfaces everywhere. The result is that all user interfaces converge on Apple's style, which when you actually examine it more closely is less efficient, less powerful and actually inferior in most respects except for idiot-friendliness and shininess.

    I have an awesome idea: What if we eliminate the content pane from all browsers? We could save over 90% of screen space.

  88. No! by plastick · · Score: 1

    Are you serious?? Has to go??? Who is in control of these terrible design ideas? Obviously this person isn't listening to the actual user base! Don't do it!

  89. Sigh by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    Why not make it customizable?

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  90. Are we really that stupid nowdays? by cyn1c77 · · Score: 1

    The location bar has to go. It has many problems.

    Does Mozilla really think that their average user base has gotten dumb enough to not understand the URL bar? I find their logic a bit insulting.

    For one, it’s always visible and constantly takes up a large amount of space.

    How about enabling a toggle button to hide/show it at will?

    Secondly, it’s hard to read, since people don’t really understand URLs.

    Wha...? Sure, there can be a lot of complexity to understand every nuance of URL structure. But you can understand 90% of the structure with a few simple concepts.

    Moreover, it’s modal: it has a mode for displaying the current page’s location and a mode for entering your next destination. It’s not always immediately obvious which mode you’re in and what the current text is indicating, and switching modes is not easy either.

    Again, a toggle switch would be good.

  91. Don't worry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the future, you wont be permitted to have intranets or local file storage, everything is going to be in the cloud. Like it's really cool, groovy and web 3.0 and stuff man (hehehe lol, isn't slashdot d2 great? etc...). Besides, how else are google and the CIA to effectively mine and exploit your private data?

  92. Awesomebar to stay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I ove firefox for extensions abd being able to cusomize it to mi liking. Currently i have 4 items on my onlu toolbar fx button shorter with only letter "f",brief button(without he button only number of unread items), location bar (awesome bar) and tabs.
    I love awesome bar.. i can search from it i can go to my bookmarked items pages i've already visited. Granted i rarely entrer urls but.... seeing current url is good.
    So if they axe the awesomebar i will bring it back... i was tempted to use old urlbar when awesomebar was introduced but i gave it a chance and its acoording to its name awesome. i dont use bookmarks via toolbars or menus... i just type in awesome bar... i've even bookmarked chrome://mozapps/content/downloads/downloads.xul as it is faster for me to start typing do then arrow down and enter then go to firefox menu and press the downloads button... i've bookmarked brief also. I'm very focused onmy screen real estate as i use a netbookk with 1024x600px resolution and i have 1023x584 available to me minus 8px scrollbar (but m considering removing it entirely) and i really need awesomebar... only i wish that suggestions that popup under the awesomebar were wider than awesomebar itself as it is only 350px wide and whehn i have few items bookmarked on the same site and I don't change the titles it's hard to differentiate between them.

    Well I've already said too much but: awesomebar stays.

    ps.
    wow I've wasted a lot of time making backround for the summary ;]

  93. The flaw in FOSS by dazedNconfuzed · · Score: 1

    Hence my #1 general complaint with free open source software: developers tend to fix what they want to fix, not what must be fixed. Stuff which is hard to do, uninteresting, and little-observed (whether during development or in the bug report bin) tends to be passed over by those who have no incentive to do it other than in return for cold hard nasty cash.

    --
    Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
  94. Mozilla on the way down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I interviewed at Mozilla about a year ago. I had a Sr. Developer telling me that I'd lied on my resume because JMeter only tests Java applications, not web sites. I was surprised. Half way through the interview I decided it wasn't for me. They have a lot of money and no bottom line. Its a weird place.

    They seem to have lost track of what made them popular. That is small, fast browser that supports the standards. All the kitchen sink stuff they have been throwing in just concerted their product from a lean, enjoyable experience to the slowest browser in my compatibility lab. Does anyone use that browser any more? I don't.

  95. Programmers or GUI Designers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The URL bar pretty much shows some ugly code to the users.
    I know the more advanced computer users here at Slashdot don't mind, and perhaps prefer, to see the current URL address.
    However, from a user experience oriented perspective, the URL bar should be done away with for beginners/intermediate users.
    The URL bar is not elegant in its current form imo, and perhaps a stumbling block for NEW users.
    I'd like to see a successful alternative to the URL bar, however I am unsure of what an alternative would look like.
    Any ideas? I know more experienced users may prefer the URL bar. But surely there are some elegant alternatives.

    Many URL's (like google's search result and gmail URLs) are too long to be displayed all at once on the URL bars and are full of nonsensical strings of characters.

  96. grrr by buddyglass · · Score: 1

    You can have my URL bar when you pry it from my cold, dead hand.

  97. Just plain DUMB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When Microsoft removed the simple File menu across the top of Office application (2007 and later) replacing it with a clumsy "Ribbon", "Office Button", and other non-intuitive pull-downs and popups, and changed the application window graphic to not conform to the current theme, the application stopped being a tool and started being a "new whiz-bang hip interface" that I'm supposed to be in awe of, and say"gosh, how 'innovative'". At that point I really started hating M$ (well, much before that, actually). Now every time I run Office I hate M$ more and more. M$ is ONLY app to not have a normal menu.

    Why did this happen? Because users asked for it? No. Because Ballmer and other dipshlts at M$ need their own legacy to feel they played a part in techno-history. F-them.

    Ok, so on to this issue. A web browser is used to view web pages. A web page is, at it's most basic identifier, a URL. So Mozilla thinks it's a good idea to remove (or hide by default) the URL address bar?

    Wow, that's DUMB.

  98. How about doing some real useful work? by jopet · · Score: 1

    Maybe that is what meinstream users want, but there seems to be an obsession with totally irrelevant little appearance tweaks, eye-candy, catching up with cool-looking competition and other aspects of looking cute.

    How about fixing some of the bugs that are still open after years, some after decades? How about finally streamlining the rendering engine? How about working on the documentation? How about improving security of addons? How about finally getting isolated multiprocessing tabs to work?

    I do not give a fuck if the URL bar is there or not but I do care about the fact that more and more often I have to fire up Chrome when I want a page to render correctly, be responsive or play nice with plugins.

  99. Campaign to chip away at user control and understa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a bit tin foil hattish, but I suspect Google and Mozilla, for their own business reasons, would prefer that users don't understand what their browsers are doing. They're also trying to eliminate the status bar. I hope there's a fork or something.

  100. How dumb is the author of this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the article: The location bar has to go. It has many problems. For one, it’s always visible and constantly takes up a large amount of space. Secondly, it’s hard to read, since people don’t really understand URLs. Moreover, it’s modal: it has a mode for displaying the current page’s location and a mode for entering your next destination. It’s not always immediately obvious which mode you’re in and what the current text is indicating, and switching modes is not easy either.

    The location bar being visible is a GOOD thing. I use it to verify that the page I am viewing is the correct one (such as online banking....I wouldn't enter any of my information into the web form unless I can see that the URL is that of my bank)

    It is not hard to read. http://www.slashdot.org Yes, wow, that is so hard to read.

    His modal argument. It is not immediately obvious which mode you are in? Really? Did you click in the location bar and start typing? Oh look you are in the mode of entering your next destination. Did you NOT click in the location bar and start typing? Oh look the text is indicating the URL of the page that was loaded. Switching modes is not easy? Clicking in the location bar and typing is not easy? How much farking easier should it be?

    Someone should take this guy's computer away from him.

  101. Full circle by slasho81 · · Score: 1

    David Regev suggests that the location bar should be replaced with a tool to support more than just one command.

    They could call it "the command line".

  102. Remove the search bar by Animats · · Score: 1

    I'd remove the search bar before removing the URL bar. Notice who's behind removing the URL bar.

  103. I've run out of vertical space.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...which toolbar should I remove? Ah...URL bar!

  104. Hello, welcome to Opera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd like to point out this is yet another thing that Opera is already doing, by allowing customized search commands and shortcuts from the url bar. Sometimes it's so tedious being ahead of the curve.

  105. If the URL Bar has to go... by plut4rch · · Score: 1

    ...then, on my system, Mozilla has to go too.

    --
    An intriguing solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place...
  106. We will have Opera and IE9 by Bloodwine77 · · Score: 1

    Perhaps we'll finally see the glory days of Opera. They have innovated so much over the years that other browsers copied, yet Opera never got the mainstream marketshare.

    I admit that I was turned off to Opera early on due to the advertisements in their free version, but that is an era long gone and it is a solid and free browser now.

    Microsoft is doing a good job catching up with IE9 and with each iteration their browser gets better and better. I suppose it just took a long time to get back in the groove after stagnating on IE6 for all those years.

    I agree with other posters who ask why they should bother with Firefox if all it is going to be is a Chrome copycat. I used to love Firefox, but I do not like some of the decisions they have been making lately. Some of those decisions can be undone with addons, but still..

    No matter how you look at it, as long as not all the browsers shed the URL bar then there will always be a browser for me. I want the URL bar. I want to quickly and easily know where I am at. I do not need to type in a URL in the Google search box to find every site.

  107. Re:Does for Phishers what hiding ext did for Troja by SuperMonkeyCube · · Score: 1
    Anybody with Mod points needs to give this guy a cigar.

    If I already have a problem with people not knowing where they really are on the internet, and they get horrid stuff all over their computers, and I can't get them to change mbam.exe to mbam.com to run sneakily run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware because they're either completely unfamiliar with file extensions or just plain can't see them to change them, how could I possibly be in favor of the foreseeable URL-free future where they don't even know where they're browsing/downloading stuff from?

  108. Really? by jgoemat · · Score: 1

    So they want to do away with an easy way to type in a url that at the same time displays the current page's location so you can copy it to send to others, while at the same time adding a LARGER gaudy description of where you are inline to the page so you have to scroll down to see as much as you would have before?

  109. New users? you must mean 4 year olds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are no new web users who are not children who can pick up the url bar just fine.
    the older ones who haven't already learned can suffer -- that group will go away with time.

  110. Re:I 3 URL Bars by celle · · Score: 1

    "Alternatively, we could consider removing the URL bar if it was replaced with a button that gave David Regev electroshock therapy every time it was clicked. Oh, and that Google guy too who's removing it."

    Don't forget the slashdot editors as it might get rid of some of the badly selected, summarized, and duped stories. Oh and triple zap on the badly researched stories and slashads.

  111. It's so blatant it's not even funny... by inject_hotmail.com · · Score: 1

    It's all about advertising and dollars.

    When the URL bar is removed, it's way easier for 99% of the population to set your homepage to a search engine, and just enter the URL in the search box and click 'search'.

    Now, I wonder who will get the click data for that? What is Chrome's default homepage? What is FireFox's default homepage?

    Yeah, thought so. Guess who is probably getting a few $million to follow Chrome's URL bar delete?

    Inevitability makes our cries an exercise in futility.

  112. Think of it as a Cloud CLI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the Browser is the new OS, does that mean Mozilla's turning the URL bar into the new CLI?

  113. "... more than one command" by JoltinJoe77 · · Score: 1

    IE9 already does this.

  114. Forget the URL bar, the TITLE bar needs to go. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That has to be the most useless item. A strip up there just to announce the program name? Waste of space. Even during 4:3 times I thought it still wasted space. There were plenty of websites that never utilized the sides well.

    On my netbook I use Chrome, and have my taskbar on the right, NeXT style.

    Livid at no 4:3 screens? Really? Do you literally go into this rage, jumping up and down like a Grimm Brothers character, frothing at the mouth when you got the news? I myself like widescreen, after all our EYES are oriented on a "wide" manner. I could understand if you were some type of fish with vertical oriented eyes, but humans can see to the side better than up and down.

    1. Re:Forget the URL bar, the TITLE bar needs to go. by jschrod · · Score: 2

      I myself like widescreen, after all our EYES are oriented on a "wide" manner.

      This statement is against every research report that I ever read on that topic.

      All typography research shows that readibility slows down after more than 70 columns. Your statement is false, IMNSHO. Human perception is not best supported by "wide" manner. Except if you think that looking at Hollywood movies is the equivalent to human perception. Me, I decline to go as low.

      --

      Joachim

      People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]

    2. Re:Forget the URL bar, the TITLE bar needs to go. by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      >>I myself like widescreen, after all our EYES are oriented on a "wide" manner. I could understand if you were some type of fish with vertical oriented eyes, but humans can see to the side better than up and down.

      Que? Our area of focus is circular, which matches a 4:3 monitor better than a widescreen.

      The death of 4:3 is one of my least favorite trends in technology. The only benefit from widescreen is that you can put two documents side by side on the same monitor.

  115. Why parent got marked "insightful" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because it's demonstrably true.

    But with mozilla it's , "when you don't want to bother with working on the pile of bug reports to fix the problems that have been there for a while.... Work on a new shiny!

    Sadly, most programmers (there are notable exceptions) will always choose to do the work that is less important, but more likely to gather recognition.

    So to fix this, stop lionizing idiots who want to remove useful information from the display and start standing up and cheering for the guys who are committing dozens or hundreds of one-line bugfixes that actually add value to the software by eliminating flaws. Bugfix should be more prestigious than feature creep, do you hear me Mozilla Foundation and Slashdot Editors?

    1. Re:Why parent got marked "insightful" by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Bugfix should be more prestigious than feature creep, do you hear me Mozilla Foundation and Slashdot Editors?

      ... and Slashdot programmers?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  116. DO NOT WANT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DO NOT WANT

  117. URL Bar does not have to go. by wukka · · Score: 1

    The whole point of Firefox is customization. Do not force whimsical changes. View, Toolbars, Customize, knock yourselves out. All I have is the Menu line with controls & URL Bar, and below the Tab line...illustrated by my funky example: http://crazynuts.hollosite.com/grfx/Firefox_Custom_Toolbars.png cheers!

  118. As always. Follow the money. by w0mprat · · Score: 1

    This is revenue driven obviously as miss-typed URLs usually redirect to a search engine, each search being exposure to advertising. Doing away with URLs by default would drive even more traffic to search engines.

    This is not about usability or security, especially since it is a huge backwards step in the latter from the point of view of phishing.

    --
    After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
  119. Gnome-Do in a browser by jmacdonald · · Score: 1

    Doesn't anyone else see the potential benefit to this? I'd love for the URL to take a hike and have a simple keystroke provide me with a gnome-do type command line. The default could be for a google search, whereas tags could be used to pick from bookmarks. Putting the tabs at the top-level of the browser was a great idea and that came from Chrome; this could be a good "feature" to put in, provided they execute it properly. The only thing I really use the URL bar for is search anyway.

    1. Re:Gnome-Do in a browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I really don't see the benefit.

      I have a site I want to go to and I know the name- type and go.

      I want to verify that I am on the site I THINK I am on.

      Or perhaps, as happens quite often with some of the things I do online:
      I am looking at multiple pages or images on a site with very similar names. With an easy place to enter/edit the url it is trivial to move between dev pages. I don't even need to have functioning site navigation code to do so.

      This is far, FAR better than adding more steps to be able to do the same things.

      Its plain and simple: whatever web browser I have MUST have a url location bar.
      As time goes on I seem to care less and less which browser that is....

  120. Subnotebook PCs straddle the line by tepples · · Score: 1

    Seriously, get off the mobile bandwagon if your doing Desktop software and stick with Desktop design ideas.

    The problem here is that subnotebook PCs straddle the line between desktop and mobile. They have the same size screen as a tablet, yet they run a desktop operating environment.

  121. Clarifications from the Author by dregev · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm the author of the guest blog post. I have some clarifications that should clear things up a lot.

    First, I'm just a member of the large community of Firefox users. I do not work for Mozilla (though that would be awesome), and I do not speak for Mozilla. As far as I know, no one within Mozilla is working on implementing any of my ideas at the moment. I simply had a concept and was offered the amazing opportunity to write some guest blog posts. The linked post is Part 1. Part 2 is coming.

    Second, contrary to the article summary and to the many comments from people who clearly did not read the post, I am not proposing to hide the location. The location will be completely visible at the top of each page, with even more information. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that the location bar can do that is not possible in my concept.

    Finally, the arguments behind each step are available in much more detail on the Mozilla Wiki. That should answer many questions.

    if you want to contribute to the discussion in a substantive manner, please first read the article and then go to the discussion page. I've already responded to a number of excellent comments there. Also, if anyone is interested in helping me implement some of these ideas, please let me know!

    David

    1. Re:Clarifications from the Author by parlancex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Okay, I read TFA, and I read your page on the Mozilla Wiki. Now please please please please please stop talking and go away.

      Thank you,
      -The Internet

    2. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As far as I know, no one within Mozilla is working on implementing any of my ideas at the moment.

      Thank fucking god.

    3. Re:Clarifications from the Author by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

      One thing I read a lot is "modally". I hate modal dialogs. There are a few cases where modal dialogs are the right choice, but 99% of the modal dialogs shouldn't be modal.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    4. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.

      It's the one thing that should be there always, no option.

      Remove the title bar.

      Move the menu pulldowns to the left.

    5. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... I do not speak for Mozilla.... I simply had a concept and was offered the amazing opportunity to write some guest blog posts.

      You do speak for Mozilla in this article simply because they commissioned and published your article.

      ...if you want to contribute to the discussion in a substantive manner...

      This discussion here on /. is substantive. The good people at Mozilla would be wise to listen the feedback from this community.

    6. Re:Clarifications from the Author by slasho81 · · Score: 0

      Hi David. Thanks for taking the time to clarify the facts of the matter. However, this is a rage thread, and therefore facts don't matter at all. Join the circlejerk and enjoy yourself.

    7. Re:Clarifications from the Author by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

      please for the love of all humanity pass this along. don't think this way: the astute will notice a similarity to Microsoft Office’s Office Button: that button is a total pile of shit. the ribbon is a total pile of shit. imho, and anyone who has escaped the one desktop interface prison will agree, the windows entire desktop experience is a total pile of shit. be innovative. don't copy somebody else's shit.

      oh, and another thing. the response to the security issues that arose by loading remote xul files should have been met with the same response to loading a self signed certificate not the complete removal of functionality and integration with a core mozilla asset. ie. a pop up box letting the user know that it is dangerous. xul is one of the best, if not the best, assets on the web to date.

      --
      Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
    8. Re:Clarifications from the Author by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 1

      Polite criticism: I disagree 100%

      Nonconstructive criticism: dumb idea.

      Constructive criticism: Please consider another line of interest where you're less likely to really piss people off... might I suggest becoming involved in politics or maybe joining a hate group, or maybe joining PETA or heading up the Jack Valenti Fan Club or something.

      --

      The Digital Sorceress
    9. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      hey man, i read most of your stuff, and while i agree that simplification of the gui is aesthetically pleasing (and usually increases functionality and intuitivity), removing the URL bar is quite literally removing funtionality.

      while others here have expressed this idea in harsh words, their point remains valid despite the venom with wich it came. this move would mimic chrome and would not set firefox apart from the pack; it homogonizes and genericizes the user's overall browser selection. many people such as myself chose firefox over chrome to this day because we desire more interactivity and control over our browsing experience.

      if you take anything from here, please listen to the suggestions for more use of the horizontal real estate - instead of needlessly removing vital functionality from an area that is pretty bare-bones as it is, perhaps a transplant of some funtionality to other areas of the screen would work better.

      i think the idea of moving the tabs to the left side of the browser is a GREAT idea.

      i wish you the best, and thanks for all your hard work.

      - the light side of the force

    10. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read your article, and I find your ideas interesting. On the other hand, I felt the same repulsion as many others here at the idea of (to quote your article) "The location bar has to go." This translates to "do not show the current location" to most people, as this has been seen in many contexts, browsers and operating system file views included. Instead, I would suggest:

      "There are better ways to display the current location and enter new locations than the location bar."

      I do not necessarily agree with this statement, but I feel it communicates your ideas better, and your ideas are certainly worth investigation.

      -------------

      On another note, I take issue with the statement about editing the current location's url: "With Ubiquity hints, this task is just as easy: hover over the current location...and hold Alt." This is hugely inaccurate for some users, including those who find the mouse too slow (which includes some with disabilities, some with limited hardware, and those who have enough familiarity with keyboard control to go faster than what is generally possible with a mouse). Additionally, holding alt while performing text edits is unwieldy -- don't forget that in addition to typing actual characters, the user may use the ctrl, shift, arrow and home/end keys, sometimes in combination with each other or other keys, in quickly editing URL's.

      Thankfully, none of the above paragraph is unfixable. There may be better methods, but keeping a simple keyboard way to "edit current location" (like the Ctrl-L shortcut), and making sure full functionality of an editable location field (without requiring the holding of any keys after beginning editing) should address these issues.

      Addendum: I read some of your responses to this issue on the Google discussion page you linked. I'd like to emphasize that if ONLY lowercase characters and basic were ever needed to be entered, then the "quasimodal" alt key would be fine, similar to holding shift to type a sentence in all caps. But places where people enter text are FAR more than that - capitalization sometimes matters in URL's, and any special character other than `/.,'; is going to need the shift key to type, Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V see a lot of use (yes, even with your interface, people will still need to copy/paste part or all of a URL to/from other programs), the arrow keys and home/end navigate quickly, and finally Shift adds selection to to navigation while Ctrl adds another dimension to it, the two of which may be combined into three keys being pressed simultaneously, repeatedly in the space of tenths of a second, and adding an extra key to hold the whole time is very unwieldy. Do not dismiss these concerns; these usability features cannot be replaced.

      I look forward to seeing your ideas bear fruit. I don't know how much they're worth keeping, but they're definitely worth trying.

    11. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Your idea is terrible. It places the URL in-line with the page content.

      Anything in-line can be spoofed easier. That's why those little "Allow ActiveX" bars were so terrible in Internet Explorer, because spoofing them is easy as hell. Even the save-password prompts in Firefox were changed for this exact reason. Putting critical security information (such as your current location) in-line is a horrible idea, it needs to be clearly placed separate from the page content. That's the good thing about the URL bar. It's clearly outside the page display area.

      Hell, even Google's idea is terrible, as the show URL bar command makes it hover over the page display area. Which can show anything, including a faked URL bar. You cannot encourage people to trust anything that appears inside, in-line, or over the page display area. That will lead to pain and suffering in the future.

    12. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I'm the author of the guest blog post.

      Have a shave, beardy.

    13. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read your paper. It's fucking terrible.

      1a) Ubiquity? Cause AOL keywords worked so fucking well the last time people used them. Screw you. Can your natural language processor handle that task?
      1b) Alt = Ubiquity? Talk your shit and go. No body wants you here any more. Alt = access the fucking menu you semi-evolved simian.
      1c) Firefox button? Really? I fucking HATE that orange piece of shit. It damn near ruined the browser. And you want to make it bigger and more important? Fuck. You. As for your argument about it being the only real button so people have to click it: If you didn't fuck the entire rest of the UI until it had died begging for mercy, you wouldn't need a goddamn idiot button.

      2.1) No shit it's modal. That's the fucking point. It tells you where you currently are focused. If you want two goddamn webpages opened side by side, launch two fucking instances of your webbrowser and let the goddman window manager do its thing.
      2.2) No it's not: http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/05/25/1532246/Mozilla-Labs-the-URL-Bar-Has-To-Go perfectly fucking readable. Maybe the problem is you're an idiot. If you want goddamn breadcrumbs, look no further than LocationBar2. And fuck the actual breadcrumb mode. The colorize text mode is hands down better. It handles display editing very well too.
      2.3)No it isn't. Maybe you should try to learn a bit about your UI before you make stupid fucking statements. F11. OMFG! The URL bar slide away =O.
      2.4) Optimization is bad! We get it. You want the entire browser to be one giant pessimation. Fucking install Omnibar. Now your URL bar does everything it should: It takes you where you want to go or tries to find where you want to go.

      2a) [Where the fuck did you learn to count?] It's gratifying to see that you are starting to realize the depths of your own stupidity. So you replace the URL bar with a popup. (Given Firefox's TOTALLY AMAZING UI responsiveness, I'm sure it will only take a second or two for the browser to pop it up. Unless you're loading /. in the background. In which case HAHA fucker! Not UI for you!) You at least pre-fill the popup with the command everyone wants to use anyway. And you only waste ~ 40 vertical pixels and 6 characters on it. GENIUS!

      2b) So now you're taking all that shit you did away with and inlining it on the page. WTG! Now everyone will think the webpage is fucked up when viewing in FF! And those menu's that some pages put at the top of their sites? WHO FUCKING NEEDS THOSE? You have INFORMATION instead. Sure it may not make your damn Myspace page look any worse, but when someone puts real work and effort into designing a webpage, this is going to SHIT ALL OVER IT for NO DAMN REASON.
      You inline prototype of the firefox start page? Yeah, that makes me want to stab your eyes out. You should have them looked at. They are obviously defective.

      2c) So you're reinventing tooltips? Again? Didn;t you guys fucking learn LAST time?
      Also hint: The rest of the web will not: "Take advantage of Ubiquity." No one wants it. And since you're trying as hard as you can to kill firefox, no browser will be supporting it in the future. Why the fuck would any one bother trying to support something like that? If we're hoping for the world to embrace ass-backward, DOA technologies, I'd rather have VRML support.

      3) I don't even know where to begin. Alright. Hide the fucking forward button. I do. Make open in new tab clone the history. Show a blank page while loading. Whatever. This is the least retarded section.
      so far

      3a) YAY! Clunkier interfaces! We heard you like scrollbars, So we put scrollpanes in you scrollpane so you can't fucking control WHAT happens when you roll that mouse wheel.

      3b) I'm sure this will come in handy for someone. My bet is everyone else will scream in rage as firefox constantly pages to hold everything in memory. Also flash plugin: What now? If it crashes, you either reload YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING HOSTORY, or lose it all. If it doesn't you now have ~23 flash widgets runni

    14. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. Do not like it. And I will not use it.
      I understand your thinking, and I understand that some do maybe like the idea of a minimalist approach to a web browser with almost nothing but web content being displayed.
      But I, and many others, it seems looking through these posts, actually Like having the Home buttons and Back Forward arrows and the address bar showing on our web browsers.
      As for your ideas, I do not Want to type in a command for everything I want the browser to display. I do not Want my webpages to be cut in half with all the history and downloads showing in the bottom half. I Like my Home button, back and forth buttons, and all the other buttons I have. I do not want to have to type in 2 or 3 or 5 word commands. I like to click on my buttons and presto, done ! I do Not want to move away from our current 'use the mouse pointer to click on a GUI button real fast' interface and regress back to a command line interface. I Like using my mouse. Especially with a web browser.
      I do not Want my browser to "do more", such as "These commands need not even be limited to those installed in Firefox; web applications could expose their own commands." which I am positive will lead to more security issues.
      In regards to your blog statement that "Ubiquity must be the method of issuing commands—not through buttons, menus, obscure keyboard shortcuts, or anything like that, but via natural-language commands. Doing so ensures that you’re not constantly wondering what method to use for each function, since there’s always one and only way to perform each action." But, I rather LIKE having more than one way to do something.
      And why does this whole thing sound like an advertising pitch for Ubiquity ? ( Ubiquity must be the method of issuing commands", and "we can finally rebuild a browser in a more “Ubiquitous” manner". ) Ok, you like that extension. I get it. Though I disagree.

      In all, I realize there are a percentage of users who would like your minimalist browser. But I beg of the powers that be, if you make this new concept browser, make it as a fork. Or as it's own stand alone browser. And do Not mess with my Firefox this way. Ok ? Please ?

    15. Re:Clarifications from the Author by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why did anyone vote this up? This is one of the dumbest posts i've ever seen (and i've been to youtube). It gives no information or opinions. Really, all it says is essentially "shut up". Especially as the parent (and the article) calmly and clearly addressed most of the frequent complaints.

    16. Re:Clarifications from the Author by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

      dregev, I would like to apologize for my post. It was totally inappropriate. You guys create the browser so it does what it is that you want it to. Sharing it and the tools and the libraries is very nice of you. Again, I'm very sorry for being such a dick.

      --
      Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  122. Next to go--the window! by griego · · Score: 1

    Unity wants to hide scrollbars, GNOME does away with minimize and maximize buttons, and now browsers are hiding the URL bar. Next up--the window! This overly complicated UI element must be hidden from users, it does nothing but confuse them!

  123. The titlebar by prikkebeen · · Score: 1

    Why not auto hide the fucking title bar. I'm frustrated by this for over a decade. It really is useless.

  124. It gets a plus one from me by Error27 · · Score: 1

    The article conflates 2 things that make the URL bar suck.

    1) It's basically the output of /dev/urandom which is ugly and a waste of space.

    2) It's pretty stupid. It should be able to tell the difference between searches (words that form an invalid URL or that don't resolve) and searches. For example, if I want to find the time in San Francisco, I open a new tab, type google.com into the url bar and then enter "time: san francisco". That should all be done straight in the URL bar.

    The article makes those two issues seem like one issue, which they're not. But at the same time both are real annoyances and it's good that someone is thinking about it.

  125. Re:Does for Phishers what hiding ext did for Troja by ChienAndalu · · Score: 1

    The address bar has always sucked for phishing prevention. How many normal people really register the difference between facebook.com faceboook.com facebook.cn facebook.com.cn and so on?

  126. LibreFox ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where's LibreFox when we need it :D

    Seriously, just fork it into several competing projects so we get
    *better* browsers.

    Or OpenFox, FreeFox or whatever. .

  127. Easy by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

    New tabs/windows will get a URL bar, and when you finish entering the URL, the bar will disappear and the page will load. From then on, you navigate with the mouse. When you open a link in a new tab/window, the URL bar will be shown for a few seconds when you first switch to the window. If you follow a link that leads to a different server, the URL bar will be shown for a few seconds. If you want to see it again, double-click the tab.

  128. The way this is going... by digitig · · Score: 1

    "David Regev suggests that the location bar should be replaced with a tool to support more than just one command" eh? We'll all be back to using the command line soon.

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  129. Re:I 3 URL Bars by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    David Regev isnt a Mozilla employee, and Google hasnt removed the URL bar at all. They added an additional experimental layout option to the Dev version of firefox; for reference, they have already had side-tabs as an optional experiment for about the last 7 versions.

    But no, everyone get all in a panic, some dev is toying with some ideas and some one with no say in Firefox has an opinion.

  130. Re:I 3 URL Bars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    now that's an idea right up my street .

    The URL Bar is an essential part of a browser so get yer mitts of it

  131. Re:Does for Phishers what hiding ext did for Troja by parlancex · · Score: 1

    So your argument is basically if you can't protect the illiterate / dyslexics, you shouldn't protect anyone at all?

  132. Re:I 3 URL Bars by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

    (and can see it with a single set of keypresses or presumably a mouse click if Mozilla has their way)

    Looking at the URL bar is basically effortless. Pressing a key or clicking a certain place with the mouse isn't. If it isn't effortless, you'll not do it. The dream for phishing sites!

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  133. The day they implement any of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    will be the day I uninstall Firefox. No menus, no discoverable general functionality, no buttons, only a command line? Back to the 1970s -- except that it's an invisible command line that you have to invoke with a magic hotkey? Get rid of all chrome only to reintroduce it in the content area where every fucking malevolent webpage can spoof it? Chrome and content are separated for a reason! And then I have to scroll back to the top to see my location on the web, thereby losing my location on the page? Append tab history to the current page like a neverending toilet paper roll? Force me to type "browse" for the by far most frequent action in a browser, entering a URL? And that with ALT pressed all the time? Left pinky, meet RSI. I only have two hands with ten fingers on them, does he want me to wedge a toothpick below the ALT key so I can blind-type? Make every command contextual to where the mouse pointer happens to be, so that I have to first move it away to some safe location, IF there is any such safe location left on the screen?

    This "UI is bad" ideology may be the zeitgeist, but it's totally crazy.

  134. It's like Mozilla WANT me to stop using it. by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

    Simple as that, not much more to say.
    Not using Firefox 4, not interested in 5 or 6 or 7 or god knows what else, their philisophy is a complete shambles.

    Anyone got any alternatives? I am so tied to some Firefox plugins that I need someone else to maintain a stable and secure release of 3.6 - it's all I want - just performance increases, security fixes, bug fixes and any new rendering technologies needed to be added to the backend engine. The front end, for me at least is perfect in 3.6.

  135. Remove the nav buttons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I do that every time I get a fresh install of Firefox. Keyboard shortcuts do just fine. I just have the URL bar, menus, and bookmark bar.

  136. Re:Does for Phishers what hiding ext did for Troja by ChienAndalu · · Score: 1

    No. Protect people with tools that work.

  137. Chrome and FireFox... LOL by kyrio · · Score: 1

    The retards can fight over stupidity. I'll keep using the browser that's had it all, long before the others.

  138. Fork it! by twocows · · Score: 1

    Someone ought to fork Firefox. It's about time someone stood up and said "enough is enough" and made a straight-up browser for people with stuff to do. No fancy crap that can be handled by addons, no screwing with the interface. Fork the latest version of FF3 and do what parent said: bugfixes, performance work, and under-the-hood additions. Someone out there has to have the initiative and the know-how to do this.

  139. As long as you can disable it, I'll wear it by mfearby · · Score: 1

    This disease that so many software makers seem to be getting whereby useful one-click-away buttons and widgets are regarded as heresy HAS TO GO! I'm so sick of idiots with new unproven ideas foisting them on us all, forcing us to re-learn tried and true methods of achieving things. First it happened to Microsoft Office, now I hear Open Office wants to be infected with the same disease. First chrome decides to strip away all functionality, so Mozilla has to copy? WHY GOD, WHY? Just leave stuff alone FFS!

    If there are options to turn this stuff back on, then I guess I will at learn learn to accept it. Not even Apple in all their we-hate-features-and-user-choice philosophy wouldn't dream of going to this bizarre extreme!

  140. I really don't get it. by __Paul__ · · Score: 1

    No-one is asking for this.

    What is it with these crazy user-interface obsessionists? First they inflict themselves upon Gnome, then Ubuntu, Chrome and now Firefox.

    Stop designing your software for idiots, and instead educate people. If people don't understand what the URL bar is for, explain it to them, rather than removing it for the rest of us who find it useful.

    --
    worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
  141. oh look, CLI by holophrastic · · Score: 1

    So after making the address bar double as a search bar, and a history bar, now yo uwant to get rid of it for a magic bar? And the article describes, in a great many words by the way, a command line interface. big surprise.

  142. I blame Google homepage by BestNicksRTaken · · Score: 1

    You know where this came from? All those people who have Google as their homepage and don't even use the URL bar.

    I know competent computer users who type website addresses into google and then click the top search result. At the other extreme I know non-savvy's who have no idea what the URL bar is for or that its even somewhere to type.

    The same thing happened to the bookmarks toolbar - it was the coolest thing to happen to Firefox (2?) and in 4 they hide it by default!

    --
    #include <sig.h>
  143. What day is this? by Zamphatta · · Score: 1

    Is it April 1st?

  144. Earth to Firefox developers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Earth to Firefox developers: This is just plain stupid, focus on real improvements.
    Users: If you don't understand a URL bar contents or don't care for it, just don't look at it.
    It is like a move Microsoft would do. Give them stupid cr*p and it will seem that we have actually changed our product a great deal...

  145. they are killing me by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

    first they rip out support for web loadable xul files killing my homemade wiki, and all the content on it. now they are going to take away the url bar so i can't type in, or see, the destination i'm wanting to go to. wtf?!? sooo, chrome...

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  146. A minor inconvenience by Trogre · · Score: 2

    So now every Firefox user is going to need to install URL-4-Evar right after they install Status-4-Evar.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  147. Re:I 3 URL Bars by Lunzo · · Score: 1

    I'll go one step further. I think the awesome bar in FF is an example of great user interface design. Typing is quick and easy. Using a mouse is slow.

    I don't have to hunt through a couple of folders of bookmarks in a menu; oh whoops moved the mouse a few pixels to far have to start at level 1 of the tree again. Instead I can type sla [down arrow][enter] and be on slashdot. Other bookmarks are the same, type the first couple of letters and it appears at the top of the auto-completions.

    If I was reading a cool article on last week and want to look at it again all I have to do is type a few keywords and it will appear. I don't have to hunt through the menu to find the history button then try and remember the exact day I was looking at it, then find it in the pages looked at that day. For example I opened a new tab and only had to type "url bar" to see this article as the top result. Quick, easy, effective.

  148. F11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uhmm, well, full screen mode with an auto-hiding address bar has been in Firefox for how long?

  149. then try Seamonkey by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

    You ought to try Seamonkey 2.1, it's mostly Firefox 4 with a classic interface :). the theme is slightly updated over the old mozilla 1.x suite.

    there may be less extensions but you can live with that. It also runs quick on older computers (e.g. pentium 3 with 256MB), an improvement over firefox 3.x

  150. The flaw in paid software by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    Developers add stuff that management demands, ignoring users and warnings from developers. Bugs are fixed when large customers threaten to take their business elsewhere. Source, of course, is unavailable, so the user can't fix bugs.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  151. To discard wasted space by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    Get rid of the Title Bar. Move the Close, Maximize, Minimize, Menu and Pin buttons somewhere else. Use smaller icons, and get rid of every last pixel of buffer space above and below them.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  152. But you can turn the status bar back on in FF4 by mmj638 · · Score: 2

    I hate to spoil your rant, but you can turn the status bar back on in FF4.

    The trick is in knowing that they now call it the "add-on bar".

    In the new menu, go to Firefox -> Options -> Add-on bar. Or press Ctrl+/

    The URL preview and download status still won't show in the bar like it used to, but if you want that as well, you can still restore that old behaviour with this addon, as recommend by Mozilla's official knowledgebase.

    How's that for configurable?

  153. going further down a lousy road by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Weren't the UI changes in 4.0 bad enough? The ribbon interface is crap, it is conceptually crap. Hey why not take all the useful buttons we've made handy in the UI and hide them through an extra layer of abstraction so they are harder to get to. Hooray!

    The only people who could possibly like this are those who waste time customizing the toolbars in every app they use and want to save 2 seconds... once... clearing the existing options. Wait there was one bar most everyone would customize, the bookmarks toolbar, but they hid that one too.

  154. CLI is back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unbelievable,
    but at long long last, the Command Line Interface comes back ?

    the "url" bar becoming this command line interface again. Seems like a good idea.

    Ubiquity is astonishing is its own.

    BUT!

    come on, who is things like ubiquity aimed at ? No troll meant, but i'm a fan of cli myself, and most of my coworker (in IT sector) can't stand it, look at me like an bizarre fool out of the eighties, and do prefer click-o-dromic interfaces.
    What about grandma ? what about the basic smartphone user who has only one finger ?

    Plus : okay for using natural language, great, fantastic... but english is NOT the natural language of the majority. (Chinese is by far, in number of speaker, and english is foreign language to most - me included you'll have noticed I guess ;-) ).

    see what I mean ?

    All this look like great poweruser tools, (ubiquity video is clear : its goal is to enpower the user).
    but must not replace what made computer *usable and trivial for anyone*.

    (if I'm wrong here, vim users will soon outnumber any other advanced text editor. Do you sincerely believe that ?)

  155. Simpler Isn't Always Better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Taking the URL bar away would be like taking away my thumbs. And animals with no opposable thumbs are generally looked at as food.... This is not a good idea.

  156. Don't by AP31R0N · · Score: 1

    i like seeing the URL. It provides useful info on the site. Make it optional or give it an autohide feature like the Windows taskbar.

    --
    Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
  157. The chrome frame? by islon · · Score: 1

    Browsers should move away from the old chrome frame, it takes too much space! Think about smartphones and tablets. They should create a less cluttered option and let the chrome go away.

  158. You're a HUGE fail in computing RobertM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    20 years around computers, and all you are is a tech? You're a joke Robert. You must be a retrograde idiot, because even young kids in collegiate academia accomplish more than that Robert, and they do it in less time put in. The "M" in your name must stand for moron. You're telling others to write their own add ons? Let's see an obviously limited dolt like you do one instead.

  159. Enlighten us as to why you're so stupid RobertM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    20 years around computers, and all you are is a tech? You're a joke Robert. You must be a retrograde idiot, because even young kids in collegiate academia accomplish more than that Robert, and they do it in less time put in. The "M" in your name must stand for moron. Enlighten us as to why you are only a techie after all that time, won't you? You don't have to, because it's obvious you're a moronic limited dolt.