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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

#251
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…

>Probably we are at the crossroads where developers need separate, not dumbed-down version of browser.

Yes, we are.

Funny enough, Firefox has a 'Developer edition', but that's just the Beta build, with some features turned-on by default.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

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

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t think people are paying attention to the URL bar, at least not the people this feature it trying to protect. If it looks like Google.com, then it Google.com. The logo even says so. It’s a dumbing down of the internet, in an attempt to help the average user, but it won’t work and you’re just making life harder for those who know just a bit more then average.

That's bullshit, it's not an attempt to help anybody but Google. What better way to keep people on AMP pages, than to make them so ignorant as to not even know how to tell the difference?

Whats wrong with AMP pages?

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

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah but would you discover that by looking at the url? If I want to be on www.example.com and I'm actually on example.com, then yes I can discover that by looking at the URL.

You and maybe the 3 other people that might also notice if a site is serving different pages for http vs https. If it's accessible in the browser its already part of the world wide web so what information is it even conveying?

> so what information is it even conveying?

I feel like I'm going in circles.

They're two different web pages. Possibly with entirely different information. Possibly run by entirely different people. Possibly with entirely different trust levels and threats. It conveys which of the two web pages I'm looking at. How is that not useful information?

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

#255
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never switched away from Firefox. I am old enough to know that nothing comes free, especially from a Big Corporation. As customers, all we can do is to always keep a good alternative alive, no matter what.

Firefox isn't free either. It's just paid for by Google.

The other day I heard Firefox described as Google's antitrust lawsuit insurance...

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

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm tired of this anti-Web and anti-accessibility SJW nonsense to the point that yeah Wtf is wrong with you people it's no longer 2016

It’s a common belief that SJW motivations are extremely toxic and unproductive.

The bigger problem is that these people are often very two-faced in what they believe. I've seen Europeans who are all for BLM yet say the most disgusting things about the Roma in their own backyard. Or those who preach about womens rights but turn a blind eye to the rampant sexism present in their own religion. Both laudible causes in their own right; but if you're going to make a stand for them you must be willing to eat your own cooking.

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

#257
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 spent an extra 10-15 minutes trying to debug an issue with Shibboleth last week with two other devs that had never set it up on a server before.

Why? Because we weren't forcing https yet in IIS and while I thought I had told it to go to the https site I was either wrong or it had changed. The address bar notification no longer jumps out at me.

I second a persistent dev mode / not continuing to remove address data from the address bar by default.

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

#258
post #162

Firefox became quite fast again after Quantum. For those of us who never "bought into" the whole Chrome ecosystem, there's always been adequate alternatives. Will check out: https://www.palemoon.org/

They have quite an interesting conversation on github: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/7w61aw/pale_moon_rem... I'd stay clear of that project and use mainstream Firefox instead. And afaik they still don't support WebExtensions.

I currently run firefox developer edition - gives me access to custom extensions.

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Yeah, I don't like the current trend to redirect www to root. You can easily doing simple dns-based load balancing by having multiple ip addresses on the www subdomain. You can't do that on root domain, you'll have to use a dedicated load balancer even if all you want is just simple load balancing among a small set of servers. It only benefit cloud vendors and hurt hobbyist/small website operators if this trend continues to the point that visitors expect all websites to be served from root insetad of www.

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

#260

Can someone explain why Google is doing this? I cannot figure out why it can benefit anyone (or to Google).

It benefits Google in a number of ways - amp pages being the biggest one. It benefits nobody else as best I can tell, as it further obfuscates technology from the user
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