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Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

bugs.chromium.org

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Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#261

Post by jbob2000 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #219

I am in favor of the change. I do not think hiding technical information from non-technical users is a bad thing. Making it impossible for technical users to work it out is the bad thing. If technical users want their own browser mode, where all these things are readily available, then I'd be all for that. Clicking on the browser location bar should reveal the full URL. But the noise of the protocol, the www. prefix,…

You didn't read far enough:

> "subdomain.www.domain.com" displays as "subdomain.domain.com".

This is very deceiving. This change gives phishers a huge opportunity.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#262

Post by oliveshell »

unethical_ban wrote: post #255
kevin_b_er wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

m. is where you often receive a feature degraded, app-walled, or sign-in walled website that isn't present on the full-featured website. I want to know that I'm receiving a degraded version of a website and that maybe dropping the m. will restore it.

m. is where you find a lightweight, no-bullshit version of a site that doesn't load excessive images or Flash or JS before required. I want to know I'm on a faster version of a website. (Seriously, mbasic.facebook.com allows chat, whereas m.facebook.com reminds you to install the Facebook app.) You're the second person recently to lament mobile sites on HN. I think they're great. Responsive isn't there yet.

Some of them are great. Some of them do incomprehensible shit like loading text in chunks while scrolling, making it impossible to scroll to the end of an article without waiting 5-10 seconds for it to appear.

(This might be a result of my using a content blocker to block mobile ads, but the fact that it’s even possible infuriates me as a user. I mean, it’s text! Just show me the text!)

I agree with you 100% that responsive design isn’t there yet.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#263

Post by eponeponepon »

ehsankia wrote: post #198
macspoofing wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The change was made for them, not for you Except, those same users also don't care about things in the address bar. So the change hurts the group of users that actually do care.

They didn't care so far because it was so confusing. The hope is that by showing something that's user-relevant (the name of the website name and the security level), it will become more useful for the average user. Why should a user see: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada?utm=asdioasd&arg=j210d... when all they care about is "Wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada"?

All they actually care about is "Wikipedia - Canada". Which is right there on the page.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#264

Post by vinceguidry »

shiado wrote: post #235
vinceguidry wrote: post #219

I am in favor of the change. I do not think hiding technical information from non-technical users is a bad thing. Making it impossible for technical users to work it out is the bad thing. If technical users want their own browser mode, where all these things are readily available, then I'd be all for that. Clicking on the browser location bar should reveal the full URL. But the noise of the protocol, the www. prefix,…

It breaks how the web is supposed to function. There is no consensus on the utilization of subdomains and which ones are considered to be trivial. I could write an app which maps usernames to subdomains and Chrome would break this if a user had a username which was in the trivial list. I think Tumblr is a site which does this. It really isn't about technical or non-technical, it is about what subdomains can be used f…

There's no such thing as "how the web is supposed to function." There is an ideal that the plurality of the early web once sought to chase. There are more ideals that the more commerce-friendly users and creators of the web started to chase.

The norm is always shifting. It's our job as technologists to accommodate how people want to use technology, not to tell them that the way they want to use it is wrong. Because if we try to tell them no, then they're going to use the freedoms we labored so hard to give them to stop listening to us.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#265

Post by idbehold »

fireattack wrote: post #99

I'm ok with hiding "www.", but it also hides "m." which is sometimes very confusing (I once opened a m.facebook.com link and was very puzzled why it uses the mobile site when the URl bar just shows "facebook.com").

What you may be surprised to learn is that Chrome isn't just stripping "www." from the beginning of the subdomain. "subdomain.www.domain.com" displays as "subdomain.domain.com"

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#266

Post by vinceguidry »

jbob2000 wrote: post #261
vinceguidry wrote: post #219

I am in favor of the change. I do not think hiding technical information from non-technical users is a bad thing. Making it impossible for technical users to work it out is the bad thing. If technical users want their own browser mode, where all these things are readily available, then I'd be all for that. Clicking on the browser location bar should reveal the full URL. But the noise of the protocol, the www. prefix,…

You didn't read far enough: > "subdomain.www.domain.com" displays as "subdomain.domain.com". This is very deceiving. This change gives phishers a huge opportunity.

I agree with the spirit of the change, not necessarily every detail of the implementation.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#267

Post by stvkoch »

parliament32 wrote: post #118

Considering a subdomain "trivial" is ridiculous... there's a difference between "www.example.com" and "example.com". Not only can they serve different sites, they can even have different DNS records! It seems that "m." is also considered a trivial subdomain. So when a user clicks a link to a "m.facebook.com" uri, they'll be confused why FB looks different when the browser reports it's on "facebook.com". I sincerely h…

humm... for sure that wasn't a technical decision, and here start the problem.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#268

Post by masswerk »

parliament32 wrote: post #118

Considering a subdomain "trivial" is ridiculous... there's a difference between "www.example.com" and "example.com". Not only can they serve different sites, they can even have different DNS records! It seems that "m." is also considered a trivial subdomain. So when a user clicks a link to a "m.facebook.com" uri, they'll be confused why FB looks different when the browser reports it's on "facebook.com". I sincerely h…

This is certainly subverting the domain name system. I can't see the value or gain in security by this.

(If you want to put focus on the domain, then display the host-part with less contrast, i.e. grey, but don't hide any potentially vital information. Otherwise, put out a RFC, defining "www" as a substitute for "*", or a zero-value atom, in order to guarantee consistent behavior.)

Edit: There are also legal concerns with catch-all domains in some countries. Blending the lines certainly doesn't help.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#269

Post by brockers »

fireattack wrote: post #99

I'm ok with hiding "www.", but it also hides "m." which is sometimes very confusing (I once opened a m.facebook.com link and was very puzzled why it uses the mobile site when the URl bar just shows "facebook.com").

No this is simply bad implementation. As has already been mention, for internet services that also have websites for those services the www. subdomain makes total sense.

> How will you distinguish http://www.pool.ntp.org vs http://pool.ntp.org ?

In the above case pool.ntp.org is a decades old time service, while www.pool.ntp.org is a website describing the service.

Re: Chrome 69: “www.” subdomain missing from URL

#270

Post by acdanger »

mplewis wrote: post #247
acdanger wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many companies have their marketing site at www. and they're app at at, say, app. e.g. https://www.netlify.com/ vs https://app.netlify.com/

That's www vs app, not www vs lack-of.

Ah. Thanks for clarifying that.
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