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Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

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Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you're going to copy that URL to your buddy. You're not going to read it out to him.

You'd be surprised how often people read URLs to one another over the phone.

i would be very surprised. in my days doing tech support, i quickly learned that this was a completely fruitless exercise as a huge number of people have no idea how to use the URL bar in their browser. they know how to use google, and can click links that are emailed to them or shortcuts in their browser, but simply do not know how to navigate to a URL (even a path-less one).

i could usually tell somebody "go to google" or "click this link", but "go to " was met with confusion.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are going back to AOL days. That didn’t work out so well for AOL in the long run. It’s kind of crazy to me you can’t do marketing now without at least discussing Google and Facebook these days. Edit: at least you knew you were the customer with AOL and paid them with clear terms for access.

The only difference is that Google has endlessly more clout and depth than AOL and my fear is that where AOL failed, Google may succeed. With Firefox succumbing this week, this is pretty horrible. I’m not a Richard Stallman type, but I think it’s come to the point where if you have even the slightest pretense of being a “free web” person, using Chrome or a Chromium-based browser has become unconscionable. This compan…

I’ll add my voice to that, I’ve been using Firefox as primary dev browser for a couple of years now and it’s a perfectly cromulent choice. I don’t miss Chrome one iota, far from it; when firing up Chrome to investigate browser-specific issues it seems alien now.

My level of respect for origin was similarly the tie-breaker when choosing between Vue, Angular, and React.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, however, a wacky far-out conspiracy theory to claim that Google is developing this feature for the purpose of internet domination. The given purpose is phishing prevention, which is the same reason why this exact feature has been part of Safari for years yet no one pointed out that it was a nefarious attempt by Apple to takeover the web and further their walled garden.

> It is, however, a wacky far-out conspiracy theory to claim that Google is developing this feature for the purpose of internet domination. No, it's not. Are you aware that Google is mangling AMP URLs to make them look like original URLs and hide the fact that they are hosted by Google?

Which has nothing to do with the feature discussed in this thread, which is to hide non-domain parts of the URL.

What you're referring to is the Signed Exchanges proposal.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is, however, a wacky far-out conspiracy theory to claim that Google is developing this feature for the purpose of internet domination. No, it's not. Are you aware that Google is mangling AMP URLs to make them look like original URLs and hide the fact that they are hosted by Google?

Which has nothing to do with the feature discussed in this thread, which is to hide non-domain parts of the URL. What you're referring to is the Signed Exchanges proposal.

Splitting up your plan into discrete parts that seem relatively inert on their own isn't a new thing. ANFO is a good example.

And it's pretty easy to do this in a way that front line and low level MGMT Googlers wouldn't know.

The AMP lead, for example, has posted here, and seems credible and very competent for his own intentions. I'm not convinced he's totally aware of the intentions of his leadership chain.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#456
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple does blatantly MITM urls into their own proprietary walled garden! Just a few days ago there was a HN post about Safari On iOS 14 redirecting from certain articles to Apple News. It was, of course, quickly flagged away from the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24113056

> It was, of course, quickly flagged away from the front page. what does that imply?

That the HN audience in aggregate has a hypocritically lower appetite and interest in Apple's web shenanigans, given that a moderator never identified anything actually wrong with the submission and given that Google would be crucified for a similar action in Chrome for Android.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#457
post #448
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 18 windows open in Firefox vs chromium that say otherwise. Why would I lie lol.

And what about memory requirements? Also there are no addons in mobile Chrome!! Big issue for me.

I have 64GB of RAM because I know the workload is memory hungry. But still, I have enough left over: https://imgur.com/a/Q25P7vJ

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#458
post #68

Wow - top posts are conspiracy theories. "The only reason to do this..." "This is a security issue..." Google has millions / billions of users. From a security standpoint the focus should be entirely on the root domain, that is the only really meaningful root of trust. If you are talking about a security issue - the KEY security issue is ANY lack of clarity around root domain. "Showing the full URL may detract from t…

My first thought when reading this was relief... For my mother. I've spent most of my adult life trying to teach my parents to look at the address bar to make sure they're on bankofamerica.com and not some random phishing domain. That kind of falls apart though when it's... bankofamerica.comm.phishingdom.com/{random filler}/bankofamerica/user/login HN users are fantastic at thinking all technologies should revolve ar…

Exactly - also if you do any penetration testing of your staff side - the key to get something through is have the name of the company it seems anywhere in the URL. Literally - lkjljkdfskjfsd.com/bankofamerica/securelogin.do etc.

Part of the issue I've noticed is some sites actually do outsource things to other sites (microsoft has a lot of redirects on logins so you used to end up on passport.com I think to login, and then to something with azure, then office... etc). Combine this with subdomains and trailing urls and internationalization efforts and you are in trouble.

This must be just because of how we scan / read things? Ie, a quick cross check. A lot of people maybe don't parse all the elements properly (,.:?& etc).

The other issue - let's say just 2-5% of chrome users are confused. That still is a HUGE number that are confused.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#459
post #68

Wow - top posts are conspiracy theories. "The only reason to do this..." "This is a security issue..." Google has millions / billions of users. From a security standpoint the focus should be entirely on the root domain, that is the only really meaningful root of trust. If you are talking about a security issue - the KEY security issue is ANY lack of clarity around root domain. "Showing the full URL may detract from t…

> their focus on things like ... security ... helped them become absolutely dominant I don't think Chrome's security features had anything to do with its ascension. Chrome took off because it was fast and had a good UI (iirc it had the ability to drag a tab from one window to another, a while before other browsers did). The average user knows nothing of the security features of their browser.

It did in a domain I'm familiar with.

I think they were the first to have separate processes for tabs (?) which you could really see add robustness - when flash could blow up your session etc you could much more easily close out the offending tab.

They were stricter and more prompt in blocking things like activex controls, they'd remove features tabs would use to try to take control of your session or confuse you. All these enhanced security and usability.

Re: Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86

#460
post #68

Wow - top posts are conspiracy theories. "The only reason to do this..." "This is a security issue..." Google has millions / billions of users. From a security standpoint the focus should be entirely on the root domain, that is the only really meaningful root of trust. If you are talking about a security issue - the KEY security issue is ANY lack of clarity around root domain. "Showing the full URL may detract from t…

> Folks seem to miss the fact that google chrome was a minor competitor initially it IE - and their focus on things like ... security ... helped them become absolutely dominant. Security is a very small factor, if a factor at all, for Chrome to have become dominant. The main reason is because they keep/kept pushing everyone to install Chrome when you visited https://google.com (by showing you a small popup window).

Microsoft had IE as the DEFAULT - and did plenty of pushing itself.

Across almost all dimensions chrome was better when it came out - people seem to forget how horrible browsers were historically (and how easily abused). I know ages ago of an entity that just got tired of dealing with the problems folks caused not using chrome (whether it was chrome's website blacklists or whatever - folks using chrome were less likely to get ransomeware - period). Literally - EVERY install of crap seemed to be coming from IE users, except one case I know of where someone had a chrome extension change hands and go rouge.

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