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Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

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Re: Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.GitHub.io is considered a top level domain, so it will still show the repo name. In the same way .co.uk is a top level domain.

Which of course allows Google to arbitrarily pick websites to privilege at the level of an actual TLD.

No, it's not Google arbitrarily picking that, it's a project maintained by the Mozilla Foundation.

https://publicsuffix.org/

Re: Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

#234
post #94

Another phrase I live by: "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." There will be some VP of Product or Engineering buried deep in the bureaucracy who is pushing this, deciding with no evidence (or, worse, lots of evidence to the contrary; believe me this happens) that it is the "users who are wrong" [1]. It now takes something like 4 taps to get to the point where I can correct or otherwise edit the URL in m…

> SJW nonsense

Congratulations on making everything about politics, even if it has zero to do with it.

Re: Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

#236
post #97

I actually don't mind this for the gen pop. For them, showing the URL is a bit like showing the path to the current process in the title bar. As a dev, hiding the HTTPS prefix is already irritating especially when copying the URL. If you copy the whole URL, you're fine. If you manually select part of it, starting with the domain, the prefix doesn't copy. I expect this upcoming change will exacerbate this kind of prob…

I see absolutely no benefit whatsoever for the general population. Dumbing things down for people does not make technology easier, it makes people dumber. If your goal is to make people dumb and compliant, this is a great idea. Of course we know that's what Google's goal is, because that's what keeps the money flowing.

> Dumbing things down for people does not make technology easier

That's a bit of an absurd claim. Should my grandparents just be using luakit instead of Safari? Are you sure you aren't projecting your experience of technology onto people with a totally different experience of it to you?

>I see absolutely no benefit whatsoever for the general population

A benefit is reduced probability of being phished.

Re: Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

#237
post #203
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this idiocy? https://9to5google.com/2020/06/12/google-android-chrome-blac...

That’s not an example of idiocy. Idiocy would be an anecdote my father told me in the mid-90s about his workplace trying to implement the same spirit with a naïve global search-and-replace, leading very quickly to a company-wide invitation to an “African-American tie dinner”. But even that isn’t anti-accessibility .

I believe the preferred term these days is "tie dinner of color"

Re: Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s so bad about hiding www? I kind of prefer it hidden

www.example.com and example.com don't necessarily resolve to the same place.

A common convention with system administrators is to have the canonical name at www.* and redirect www-less requests to the former. If you argue that a browser implementation should fix uncommon configurations, I would argue that administrators should fix their configurations in the first place.

You don’t have this issue at all for domains that don’t have a www subdomain.

Furthermore it would be extremely confusing to have different content for www.example.com & example.com.

Re: Google adds experimental setting to hide full URLs in Chrome 85 address bar

#240
post #62

While this might be useful for a casual user, hidden URLs are a huge problem for web developers. Asking for a screenshot from client is not enough, now I'll have to provide additional instructions how to copy/paste full URL when reporting issues. Not to mention all possible problems with misconfigured servers when www and www-less domains lead to same website, but some script refuses to work on one of those. While it…

Google does have an amazing access to data on how 80 - 90% of users are using the Internet, for many Google is the entry point for their Internet experience. Maybe their data is telling them that the URL bar is basically unused?

That would be nice. They should share that data to help others understand the decision they are making. Or at least they could reference the data in their decision making.
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