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Google Removes http:// from Chrome

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Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#61
post #57

The scheme is an essential part of the URL. Copying an URL from a browser's location bar used to be a reliable way of sharing links, but this change introduces a greater potential for errors (there's no reason to assume an https resource is available via http, for example).

Copy-pasting includes the scheme (mostly, there's a couple bugs at the moment). Better to read up on the issue before commenting about how it's supposedly broken.

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#62
post #10

I can see the obscuring of http:// being useful way back in 1995, but in 2010, it seems kind of a moot point given how ubiquitous the act of web browsing is.

Wouldn't it be more useful now that web browsing is so ubiquitous?

To be entirely honest, I can't see how it would be useful either in 1995 or now. A person either cares about URLs or they don't. In the first case, the URL should be displayed properly; in the second, they won't have a damn clue what all that funny text in the box at the top of the screen is anyway, so you may as well show it properly.

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omitting the http prefix breaks the links (makes them relative) in some contexts, like some blog comments. I think people should learn about the http prefix anyway. Even our grandmas. To do that, the best we can do is to let it appear in the url bar.

But we're not talking about removing http:// from actual urls, just from the display in the address bar. I guess you're saying that seeing it in the address bar highlights that it's an important part of an actual url, which is useful for education?

I do. At least, when untrained people consistently see this prefix, they will be less surprised when they actually have to use it (like when copy-pasting). Or they could ask what this gibberish actually mean.

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#64
post #53
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41609 is an example where there's a hard problem that materializes out of thin air as a result.

Read the thread... doesn't seem like a 'hard' problem, rather, it just seems like there are multiple ways to handle the issue and they haven't decided on which one yet.

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Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#65
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The functional confusion stems from the modification of basic copy/paste, not from the removal of data from the address bar.

Oh -- still, that doesn't seem like something that can't be fixed with minor tweaking.

WYSIWYG copy/paste is binary. It either is, or not. You can't tweak binary.

WYSIWYG copy/paste is bound to break at some point. But it should be pushed as far as possible to complex tasks not floated into the most abstract action - copying an address. The issue is conceptual, it is unrelated to implementation.

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#66
post #54
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The www. prefix is a special case for people; it literally means "its the w orld w ide w eb" or "its the internet" to them. Technically, the subdomain is irrelevant. But, most people don't know this. They don't know how the internet works and (I'd suspect that this is true in more cases than you might think), think that www. is needed to get to whatever site they want to visit. Of course, this is all assuming that th…

I generally just type in the name of the site that I want: 'amazon' for www.amazon.com Firefox is generally smart enough to take me to where I want to go. The only issue is when some hack site games it's way to the top of a search result for something else, but I've only run into that a few times. Which is itself an issue -- since many browsers are now turning the 'address bar' into a combo search+address bar, novice…

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Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#67
post #38
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really www.foo.com is distinct from foo.com. http:// is pretty redundant - you usually only want to specify the protocol if its not http.

I doubt that the "average" person would realize that foo.com is different from www.foo.com — or that they could even be different.

What's worse is that a lot of sites will dns-map foo.com to www.foo.com properly, but the ssl certificates will only be for www.foo.com.

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#68

> Since 99.999% of the people only ever encounter http:// , ftp://, and https:// (did I forget any?), why not create a standard set of easy-to-understand icons to replace them, in cooperation with other browser makers? For me at least it's a lot harder to memorize the meaning of a 16x16 pixel image than a four-character string. Also, we have exactly the same problem that Google's having with this, which is that it's…

how do you copy/paste a 16x16 pixel image + half of the URL?

and how do you tell when to copy it? If I wanted to avoid the load-balanced subdomain in a url:

www35.company.com/bar/foo.aspx

and just copied: company.com/bar/foo.aspx

Would the http:// come over? how about if I just copied "bar/foo.aspx" ?

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#69
post #61
post #57

The scheme is an essential part of the URL. Copying an URL from a browser's location bar used to be a reliable way of sharing links, but this change introduces a greater potential for errors (there's no reason to assume an https resource is available via http, for example).

Copy-pasting includes the scheme (mostly, there's a couple bugs at the moment). Better to read up on the issue before commenting about how it's supposedly broken.

I didn't say it was broken, but that the change increases the possibility of errors. Look at the other links provided in this thread to see why this is so. I stand by my statement, which I made after reading up on the issue.

Re: Google Removes http:// from Chrome

#70
post #57

The scheme is an essential part of the URL. Copying an URL from a browser's location bar used to be a reliable way of sharing links, but this change introduces a greater potential for errors (there's no reason to assume an https resource is available via http, for example).

But the scheme is still shown for https.

Not consistently. This is a critical part of URLs. Not displaying it is like not displaying zip codes in US addresses (I recently lived at an address that differed from a nearby address in zip code only. We were constantly returning misdirected mail to each other.).
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