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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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They exist.

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

#352

If their goal is really to help detect fraudulent sites (the sorts of google.com.notahacker.tk), they can just show the domain in a more prominent way -- they're already deemphasizing the part of the URL after the domain name anyway. This is clearly not their motive. What Google is trying to do here is to drift the web from its most iconic components: the URL. This is the biggest threat to the web that we loved for s…

If you don't know the URL, you won't know if you're on an AMP site or the actual one.

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

#353
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…

If you're relying on bug reports to find why a page is broken you're in for a bad time because 99% of the time the user isn't going to report anything. They're just going to think your page is broken and stop using it. Use a telemetry and error reporting service like Sentry or Rollbar. These services can strip sensitive data on the client before it gets logged.

How can I tell you don't work in IT? Almost all companies including mine have ONE site to choose from to do any one thing. If it doesn't work, they either ask their colleagues (which only works if it's not the first time someone is using this around them) or create a ticket for IT.

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

#354

I'm against this. But: it's 2020 and still a huge number of people I deal with every day type the name of our product into their search bar and then login at the first site returned. Most don't know the difference between a browser and a specific website. It's all just a big Smush to them apparently.

Services that cater to the very lowest tier of users should also factor in the risk of that if they want to reap the rewards too. And it's a great thing about an open platform such as the Internet.

I'm also against this in theory, but in practice I don't care much. We shall see.

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

#355
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, there's, from my experience, a good overlap between the SJW types, and the people who push for accessibility/ a11y as the cool kids call it, as it sorta falls under the inclusion initiatives. EDIT: I was clearly disagreeing with the parent badmouthing SJWs wrt accessibility...

Sure (I'm not sure that Venn diagram is a perfect overlap, but whatever), but AMP is bad for reasons other than accessibility.

AMP is just _bad_, IMO. Content regularly is broken till you visit the actual site, sites don't follow my dark mode preferences, and interactive elements don't translate that well sometimes.

It feels like someone printed out a website to a PDF and decided that was good enough to serve!

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

#356
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…

I was with you until the "SJW nonsense" bull. What exactly does social justice have to do with any of this?

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

#357
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, it makes people dumber.

It’s important to understand, while we, the users of Hacker News may find it odd that everyone doesn’t know these things, perspective will tell us they probably have other priorities for their time–and that’s OK.

I don’t know, and honestly don’t care to know or prioritize the deep and intricate complexities of how deodorant or shampoo is made—or how it’s distributed, made safe for human use, etc. This does not make me dumber, it frees up my mental time for other priorities.

The same can be said for the 1000s of things I use daily from toothpaste to refrigerators to stop-lights to dentistry. While I may have a general idea how these processes happen, my knowledge is by no means expansive.

A deep understanding of everything should absolutely not be a requirement to function in a society.

Is Google doing this for bad reasons? Maybe. But let’s not pretend as if simplifying things makes people dumber. It’s freeing up our limited resources.

Expecting everyone to know deep details on the thousands of things they use everyday would absolutely bog us down into uselessness.

One of the smartest things we ever did was to free ourselves from needing an intense understanding of everything we use throughout the day.

As you move throughout today, notice the thousands of things you interact with which you have little idea about what went into it.

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

#358
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. What I'm saying is clearly if you want to defeat this then a totally different approach needs to turn up because 20 years of mainstream internet use has resulted in zero user education.

I doubt that. You mention in your parent post that people don't know the difference between a browser and a specific site. I think most people do. At least if they use more then 1 site.

What I meant was that in a tech support context if you ask people what browser they're using they will often say something like "I went to Product Name" or "I'm on Product Name". Then ask them what actual address they visited or again ask them what browser they are using and they will say something like "I went to the Internet".

I am not calling anybody dumb. I'm saying they don't care and don't know there is any reason to care.

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

#359
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"SJW" is a pejorative at this point because the key part isn't about the ideas being expressed but the motivations behind advocating those views. It implies that despite outward appearances it's all rather self-serving, a form of getting validation and superficial virtue signaling. So when you see major rewrites, major redesigns and controversial changes in popular products you'll often find an agenda behind it. Some…

This is not a common usage of the term SJW. The term SJW was already used to dismiss issues of race or gender; this feels like a drive-by version, dismissing those concerns when they're not even relevant to the topic.

It's definitely a more marginal usage but I think I follow. After virtue signaling, the other major critique or qualifier for so called SJW positions/tactics way back before it became an alt right catchphrase was that they were often infantilizing to the advocated, often devaluing/ignoring the agency of the advocated. It's like a stronger/stricter flavour of you don't speak for me/them or don't speak/advocate for me/them without permission, the contention often being who speaks or decides membership for said group/label. That goes along with the theory the fundamental disagreement between SJW and Anti-SJW arises out of a broader cultural disagreement/conflict over the balance between individualist vs collectivist rights and concepts of fairness/justice.

In that context, I think the connection implied above might be that those pushing for this are infantilizing the end-users by choosing to hide the URL from/for them because they think the end-users can't/aren't good enough at deciding for themselves.

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

#360
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a trick for at least chrome before 85, where if you install the google-made extension "suspicious site reporter" it will show the full url including protocol (which you can't even do with flags so it tampers with something internally which means they don't have to do this at all)

I highly doubt a non-default extension has extra permissions that aren't available to regular extensions... Can anyone reproduce this?

I looked into it several months ago and it looks like that extension is whitelisted to do it. If you try to repack the crx file and install it, the address bar doesn't get changed.
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