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Could Google's Test of Hiding Complete URLs In Chrome Become a Standard?
MojoKid (1002251) writes "The address bar in a Web browser has been a standard feature for as long as Web browsers have been around — and that's not going to be changing. What could be, though, is exactly what sort of information is displayed in them. In December, Google began rolling-out a limited test of a feature in Chrome called "Origin Chip", a UI element situated to the left of the address bar. What this "chip" does is show the name of the website you're currently on, while also showing the base URL. To the right, the actual address bar shows nothing, except a prompt to "Search Google or type URL". With this implementation, a descriptive URL would not be seen in the URL bar. Instead, only the root domain would be seen, but to the left of the actual address bar. This effectively means that no matter which page you're on in a given website, all you'll ever see when looking at the address bar is the base URL in the origin chip. What helps here is that the URL is never going to be completely hidden. You'll still be able to hit Ctrl + L to select it, and hopefully be able to click on the origin chip in order to reveal the entire URL. Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously."
Why? It's easier, more informative, more transparent, and arguably better just to show a plain old URL field than add some extra layer of crap to 'hide' it and make it less useful...
It's been updated at least twice since that one.
Google could never get rid of the URL entirely
If there's one thing I've learned with software never say never.
They could implement a service that sends the URL you want to Google first then Google fires back with the "chip" and only the "chip".
My first thought is this sounds ripe for exploit.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I'm immediately hostile to dumbing things down. However, it might, possibly, help against phishing as now you only see the URL instead of some obfuscation.
Doesn't this make phishing easier?
What, do they want Chrome to be the next AOL?
No. Show the URL. Start trimming that down and next thing you know we'll be back with keywords...
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...
How the hell user will be able to go to the website in the first place? Google it and then surf around even if you knew the URL? I like entering URL of sites I know, for example 'mail.yahoo.com' when I am in hurry to check my mails. For me it sounds like a bad idea.
hilarious
This is nothing new. Opera had it for more than a year. As usual, Firefox copies Chrome, and Chrome copies Opera.
Couldn't they just output the SHA-512 of the URL and be done with it?
There's obvious ways to shoot for the phishing mitigations that this is apparently seeking to achieve, without turning the web into an app store. We used to make fun of stupid flash sites due to lack of linkability, is it really necessary to so thoroughly lunge off the cliff into this idiocy now?
I wonder how many bad guys are already thinking of ways to exploit this. Yes the domain is more prominent, that should have been fixed years ago - but how many sites out there are completely free of XSS vulnerabilites? When this eventually becomes non-optional, how am I going to spot https://mybank.foo/?q="><script>evil; stuff;</script>
?
The perfect irony of course is that Google's own pagerank depends on cross-site linking... By robbing people of URLs, a future generation of net users will grow up never knowing how to share a page with their friends unless there's a sharing mechanism within the same site their friends already use.
... they bribe the state to criminalize the use of url's and make it compulsory to access websites only via a licenced search engine.
Fuck Autorefresh
Dear Sir, I feel pretty sure this is a stock feature of iOS since 7.0, or maybe 7.1. Chrome is enjoyng sloppy seconds on this one.
It's just an annoyance.
They want to make the "Search" bar bigger! and the URL bar smaller. mmmmm ... more data for Google to absorb and analyze.
This sounds exactly like something stupid Microsoft would have done in the 90's because they "know what's better for users".
This is a case of dumb Product Managers assuming that Users are too dumb to know what an URL is. This time to develop and test this could have been better spent in a real and useful feature.
I certainly hope not. The number of times I have to edit a URL in the address bar is rather high
If URLs and typing domains are gone... Google will be there to route and direct and govern the whole internet.
We know we can trust them. ;-)
Sure, seeing the URL would have let you know it was http://mycr0soft.cn.ru/install.php but who needs security when you could have "security"?
The hybrid approach where the domain is in 100% black while the protocol and trailing path is 50% black or so, is perfect. It enables you to mentally filter out the extra bits, but allows you to see those extra bits at a glance without requiring any further action.
Chrome, as usual, fucks everything up, and Firefox is sure to follow.
I don't have anything coherent to say. I'm so disgusted with lemmings and fads running amok in this industry I am not going to bother stating the obvious.
This kind of asshattery certainly on par with Microsoft spending millions in meetings and committee design to perfect the most inane location to place shutdown/logoff buttons.
Keep up the good work.
1) In FireFox or Chrome I usually just type what I am searching for in the address bar.
...
2) On a phone, people tend to use a voice command to say what information they are looking for.
In the real olden days, people memorized phone "numbers" saying things like "Klondike" 5234 to an actual human phone exchange operator.
I think the actual digits and alphabet mapping actually came later (someone who knows, just jump in and correct!)
Hell, in the early days of the internet, half the sites seemed to be just pure IP addresses, no fancy domain names.
Evolution of the internet, I suppose
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
The Origin Chip allows for much faster linking and searching then the previous address bar. Clicking on the Origin Chip or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+L shows the entire URL along with highlighting it making copying quick and easy. Clicking on any area of the address bar that isn't the Origin Chip or using the keyboard shortcut F6 instantly clears the address bar allowing for the next search term or URL to be entered quickly. Realistically this allows for a cleaner and quicker address bar for most use cases, and in those typically rare cases when you need to know the full URL it is only one click away. I don't quite understand all the outrage, and if you really need the full URL just a glance away at all times you can always go to chrome://flags/#origin-chip and disable the feature.
Since their slogan was "don't be Evil" I always figured they'd end up as one of the most evil companies on the planet. That's just the way humanity is. Anything idealistic tends to get perverted. The more idealistic it is, the more perverse it tends to be. Hence, "don't be Evil" is likely to get about as perverse as it comes. This is only the beginning. The ultimate Google UI to be placed in the browser, your car, and just about anything else will be reduced to a single button marked "Submit".
Oh crap... I'm using Chrome on Slashdot and it's already happening. Oh well... no choice but to push it...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That's exactly what Safari on iOS does. What's the scoop?
Do A/B testing. If it turns out that the majority of users want this feature, activate it as default, and provide for a way to turn it off in advanced settings.
As long as I don't have to deal with it, I honestly don't care who does.
Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously.
Google doesn't want people to go to a website directly on their own. They want folks to search for it with Google, obviously.
The only thing more amazing than your contempt for the average browser user is Google's contempt for the average browser user.
Look here, at our "less fishy" interface.
While we ensure you will never go to Bob'sTinyDomain.com ever again.
The 1%
I come here for the love
All part of corporate strategy to turn the internet into television 2.0.
Must not happen.
If you run any kind of a website in a competitive market you can see the value (cash) that Google is extracting with this change.
Every time the user leaves your website to go to Google (even if they come right back) is a chance for you to lose that customer to a PPC competitor that is squatting our your trademark/URL with an ad that users will confuse as actually being part of your site.
Anyone with me on this?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Right?
More interesting might be least common multiple or greatest common divisor.
I love this totally new feature that google has invented it's so useful and new! But seriously opera has been doing this sort of thing forever the address bar says slashdot.org and when you click on it it gives you the full url.
If you don't have the URL but you have the name of the site and what the page is about " an article on CNN about blah blah" , how would you find it? SEARCH! And perhaps you'd encounter a useful advertisement for blah blah on your way to CNN.
Nice move. No more links, only Google.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
No thanks... I already avoid Chrome because I'm don't like that it doesn't have the usual title bar. Even more annoying that Firefox and Opera followed suit. I can't think of any other programs that do this on OS X. This behaviour is annoying to me because I often have many tabs open and this makes it hard to read the entire title of the current page. So, this leaves me with Safari. I like Chrome's approach of each tab having its own separate thread, but I just can't get over this lack of title bar.
Firefox is looking more and more appealing these days. The new Firefox 29 is much more stable than previous versions (and as stable as chrome) and the new UI is nice but needs slight tweaking.
Chrome keeps trying to sign me in to Google services, uses too much memory (as much or more than Firefox), its plugins aren't as established as FF's and they're starting to do strange things to the UI (like implement their own scroll bar).
Each have their pros and cons, Firefox allows you to change network settings specifically for the browser, chrome delegates it to the OS. The way Firefox handles this has recently become very useful to me.
Chrome was much better than Firefox in the early days but things aren't as clear cut now, it's very competitive.
I recommend you let go of your preconceived notions and give Firefox another try. You might find Firefox's set of bugs to be more tolerable than chrome's set of bugs
Blame Apple for infecting the tech world with products designed for idiots
If this happens, every piece of Google software is going bye-bye from my computer, my families computer and everyone else I can tell about it.
Actually just fuck off Google. Seriously. Just go.
Anyone else want to seriously consider forking chromium?
I'd sooner that than Firefox. They are going down a worse route and they keep breaking everything because they are too retarded to right an actual API.
I really paid little attention to the full URL ever, so I really could care less other then maybe it would be helpful in cut and pasting a shorter address? I guess the real question is what possible could be Google's other motivation for this? Because you know some are going to think Google has some more sinister motive for this that benefits Google and their data mining operation. I guess if your that paranoid you will use Firefox switch search to DuckDuckGo and use incognito mode as much as possible. The browser stats say Chrome is gaining market share, so it appears most are too stupid to care about what Google does. Or don't care, just as long as Chrome works well.
Don't you DARE hide the URL from me. The whole point of having the URL is knowing where you are. I am sorry if two decades of retard newbs have no clue how to Internet. That's not my fault. Don't stupid-down Google Chrome for these mouthbreathers.
I support the idea. I do not know if Google's is the best way to do it, but especially at the era of most web pages being dynamically generated (CGI), the address is more of an internal technical reference and not something user-friendly. Compare these URLs for example:
Classic web: http://matta.hut.fi/matta/latexopas/index.html
Shows you a simple, easy to read location, which is useful like a path in a file manager.
Modern web: http://www.amazon.com/Minecraft-Essential-Handbook-Official-Mojang/dp/0545669936/ref=acs_ux_rw_ts_b_books_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&pf_rd_p=1615333102&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=283155&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=12FR9B99EVT40740XXCY
Shows you a gibberish URL including mostly internal reference numbers and bookkeeping of the website.
I do not find most of the data in the latter example to be useful to me, just like I do not have to constantly see the web page HTML source. So for the user experience, it is better to simply hide that information.
If it is implemented properly, that is. I do not know which is the best way to do it without causing any confusion to the user.
... Internet Explorer does this better - assuming that this is what you want. It highlights or bolds the domain name, but you can still see the rest of the URL.
If the target audience of your browser is a half step or less from computer illiterate, you need to take steps to protect them from themselves. This means that the others will have to find another toy to play with because Google has decided that the more literate crowd is not as valuable as customers or feels that they will just adapt, complain and move along because they have little other choice.
The intent of new browsers is to take people where the browser -makers want them to go, not where the user wants to surf. Same thing on anti-virus software - e.g. Avast and AVG now load popup ads that can not be disabled. .
Yep, and when you click the field to give it focus have it highlight the whole thing so that you can start typing your search or Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V to copy or paste the damn link. I've been compiling my own Firefox for so long I had forgotten that this wasn't a standard feature.
what? my firefox does this.. is it broken?
that they will be running all of your web surfing through their funnel. Complete browsing history for your journey. The same way that Bing does with image searches, where it says "click the link to go to the real page with the image".
Lots of email clients do this. This creates many problems, and does not do any good what-so-ever.
Why, Google, why?
The host is black, the rest is grey.
What's Chrome?
Rick B.
Random thoughts on it.
1. You can click on the domain and see the full url. It's not hidden completely, just have to click to see it.
2. URLs other than the domain name are an implementation detail. They mean nothing on their own, but only what the webserver behind that domain decides they mean. There's no url standard to adhere to. It's just chrome hiding unnecessary information and providing an easy to click search/url bar. While my initial reaction to seeing it was "WHAT?" after thinking about it a second I realized that I mostly ignore the url bar and just care about the domain most of the time. If I want to copy the link I can click on the domain and the whole url appears and is highlighted, or I do what I actually do and hit ctrl+L ctrl+C.
When I watch a tv show, I don't see all the details about what information is being passed to/from the cable provider and my box. Just the channel name. On the web, we don't see all the urls that are flying by with ajax, or iframes. We just see the main url which is usually not that helpful. This seems like a cleaner approach long term.
Not all URLs are long. It is certainly possible to have nice short URLs on a site - with descriptive names even:
bank.com/login
bank.com/account
bank.com/pay_bill
And so on.The ugly parts can go into cookies. Google is free to hide the useful information, I am free to use another browser.
XMLHttpRequest, @font-face, and a bunch of other things are local to an origin, but cookies are local to a domain.
Once they bookmark the site... Then what? I barely use a search engine anymore... I already bookmarked all the sites I like.
Twinstiq, game news
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf
The Opera browser has been doing the same thing for quite a while. It shows the base URL, and when one clicks in the address bar, the full address is displayed (and can be copied).
I have to sit and change/test various parameters for certain tests. This will become a nightmare if you remove the parameters after every time I hit enter - or not even let me put http://10.1.1.1:8888/bla.jsp?t... in my browser... Curl is great and all for most situations, but if I'm testing something specific to the browser this will make my life hell.....
Plus, one thing I hate, when I type in a complete URL into the address bar, and rather than take me to that site (which would be logical), I end up getting a Google search with the first item being the site I was trying to get to. Like, why the extra step? Why can't my browsers (plural) take me directly to the freakin' site after the Url has been entered completely????
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
I enabled this functionality in Chrome to take a look at it. This makes the address bar much friendlier to folks who aren't techno types (i.e. almost everyone in the general population).
If you need the full url (to copy and paste it to someone, for instance) you just click the site name and the full address appears in the address bar.
I don't see what the big deal is, honestly. It's not a huge change. It's easy to get the full URL and the new format basically hides unnecessary clutter.