I find it mindboggling that instead of removing the silly and superfluous "www." they are trying to remove the meaningful and important "http://.
It doesn't solve any actual problem and creates a slew of new ones.
The importance of “http://”
21–30 of 42 posts
Re: The importance of “http://”
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to wonder how it is a "massive improvement for simplicity for most web users". Here's a question: What problem does this solve for most users? Was the existence of " http:// at the beginning of a url actually a problem for most users? If it's to emphasize the domain, Google Chrome 5.0 beta on OS X and IE8 both have domain highlighting, without breaking copy/paste. I would also dispute the idea that only a "sma…
Copy/paste seems to be working perfectly well on Chrome for me. And if there are other buggy cases, why are you assuming they cannot be fixed? Facebook and twitter will work just fine. The problem it solves is one of simplicity. http doesn't mean anything to many people. I happen to like it gone - it's a redundant piece of information removed from my UI. I appreciate that.
The article listed bugs. Facebook and Twitter will work fine, it would just be more inconvenient because of the bugs introduced by the new scheme.
It's not redundant information, it is information on what protocol is being used. That is important information. And this information is still being displayed, the only difference is it is displayed in an alternate form of an icon. An icon representation introduced by Chromium and unfamiliar to the majority of internet users. Now the Chromium developers have to decide how to display alternate protocols, will https be represented as text or as an icon? Will other browsers use the same icon representation? Are we assuming Chromium users will only use Chromium, will this confuse users who regularly use other browsers?
To say that other bugs will just be fixed ignores the bugs caused by the unnecessarily introduced complexity.
Re: The importance of “http://”
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to wonder how it is a "massive improvement for simplicity for most web users". Here's a question: What problem does this solve for most users? Was the existence of " http:// at the beginning of a url actually a problem for most users? If it's to emphasize the domain, Google Chrome 5.0 beta on OS X and IE8 both have domain highlighting, without breaking copy/paste. I would also dispute the idea that only a "sma…
Copy/paste seems to be working perfectly well on Chrome for me. And if there are other buggy cases, why are you assuming they cannot be fixed? Facebook and twitter will work just fine. The problem it solves is one of simplicity. http doesn't mean anything to many people. I happen to like it gone - it's a redundant piece of information removed from my UI. I appreciate that.
When I said "what problem does it solve" I was thinking of usability problems as opposed to disagreements over aesthetics. Did the presence of "http" confuse users? Did it prevent them from completing tasks they wanted to accomplish with their browser? How does its removal help the user?
Re: The importance of “http://”
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Copy/paste seems to be working perfectly well on Chrome for me. And if there are other buggy cases, why are you assuming they cannot be fixed? Facebook and twitter will work just fine. The problem it solves is one of simplicity. http doesn't mean anything to many people. I happen to like it gone - it's a redundant piece of information removed from my UI. I appreciate that.
When I said "what problem does it solve" I was thinking of usability problems as opposed to disagreements over aesthetics. Did the presence of "http" confuse users? Did it prevent them from completing tasks they wanted to accomplish with their browser? How does its removal help the user?
Anything that is not understood by a user is potentially a source of confusion and error.
The http prefix did nothing when navigating. You could type 'www.google.com' and get exactly the same result as 'http://www.google.com. It is redundant, unnecessary, wasteful. It can be removed, because it does nothing.
This is a usability problem. You just don't experience it.
Re: The importance of “http://”
#25This reminds me of what happened when Microsoft decided to trim known suffixes off displayed filenames. Has everybody forgotten the hot-babe.jpg.exe viruses? With unicode allowed in domain names, it's only a matter of time before someone registers http：／／gmail.com.
They still do that. One of the first things I do on a new Windows system is to turn that "feature" off.
To be fair, Mac OS X does the same by default.
Re: The importance of “http://”
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Copy/paste seems to be working perfectly well on Chrome for me. And if there are other buggy cases, why are you assuming they cannot be fixed? Facebook and twitter will work just fine. The problem it solves is one of simplicity. http doesn't mean anything to many people. I happen to like it gone - it's a redundant piece of information removed from my UI. I appreciate that.
The article listed bugs. Facebook and Twitter will work fine, it would just be more inconvenient because of the bugs introduced by the new scheme. It's not redundant information, it is information on what protocol is being used. That is important information. And this information is still being displayed, the only difference is it is displayed in an alternate form of an icon. An icon representation introduced by Chro…
You say the protocol being used is important. Is it? Why? I think it is not. I think the important things for 99.9% of people are: (i) this is a website, (ii) this is a secure website. The actual protocol being used is a technical issue that the user does not need to know. The user just needs to know if it is secure or not.
You take issue with the icon. For years browsers have added a padlock to the UI when https:// is being used. Do we therefore need the 'https:// part? Do you think there should be no such icon?
In fact, I would argue that displaying a globe icon for most websites, and a padlock icon for secure websites, is an enormous boon for web security. Consider the previous situation, without icons: you are asking the user to spot the difference between 'http:// and 'https://. This is not something everyone will manage.
You don't like the abstraction because you are comfortable with what is being abstracted away. This does not mean the abstraction is not valuable. It means it is not valuable to you.
Re: The importance of “http://”
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I said "what problem does it solve" I was thinking of usability problems as opposed to disagreements over aesthetics. Did the presence of "http" confuse users? Did it prevent them from completing tasks they wanted to accomplish with their browser? How does its removal help the user?
Anything that is not understood by a user is potentially a source of confusion and error. The http prefix did nothing when navigating. You could type 'www.google.com' and get exactly the same result as ' http://www.google.com . It is redundant, unnecessary, wasteful. It can be removed, because it does nothing. This is a usability problem. You just don't experience it.
When I type "www.google.com" into the search string of my search engine and hit "I feel lucky" then it gives exactly the same result (and that's how I saw a few people navigate to sites).
So if we go with the path of UI simplification, we could as well get rid of the URL (what does this TLA mean for a user, anyway?) and just leave a single input-only field.
Wait, that's exactly what is there today after you click on the icon with the house on it... So, maybe just make a checkbox "hide the URL input" and "show search engine homepage on new tab" ?
Re: The importance of “http://”
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anything that is not understood by a user is potentially a source of confusion and error. The http prefix did nothing when navigating. You could type 'www.google.com' and get exactly the same result as ' http://www.google.com . It is redundant, unnecessary, wasteful. It can be removed, because it does nothing. This is a usability problem. You just don't experience it.
When I type "www.google.com" into the search string of my search engine and hit "I feel lucky" then it gives exactly the same result (and that's how I saw a few people navigate to sites). So if we go with the path of UI simplification, we could as well get rid of the URL (what does this TLA mean for a user, anyway?) and just leave a single input-only field. Wait, that's exactly what is there today after you click on…
I never said UI simplification should be privileged above all other concerns. Your idea has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
Re: The importance of “http://”
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I said "what problem does it solve" I was thinking of usability problems as opposed to disagreements over aesthetics. Did the presence of "http" confuse users? Did it prevent them from completing tasks they wanted to accomplish with their browser? How does its removal help the user?
Anything that is not understood by a user is potentially a source of confusion and error. The http prefix did nothing when navigating. You could type 'www.google.com' and get exactly the same result as ' http://www.google.com . It is redundant, unnecessary, wasteful. It can be removed, because it does nothing. This is a usability problem. You just don't experience it.
Yes, it did do something. It informed me that I was on an unsecure connection.
Re: The importance of “http://”
#30In all honesty I have only just noticed that the machine I am working on has this feature.
I see the draw backs but the fact I haven't noticed for about 48 hours or more is, well, telling IMO.