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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

#31

Post by cinquemb »

bambax wrote: post #13

For now I'm quite happy to have finally switched to Firefox a few months ago. If Firefox disappeared though, as it seems it might, that would be horribly frustrating.

And for those of us who still compile ff from source and remove/add things as we please, we'll have to see people moan about something they always had and will continue to have control over, but long ago rationalized away seeking comfort in the chaining of their minds to things/ideas that are foremost in the best interest of others and not themselves.

/me shrugs

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

#32

Post by daveed »

asimpletune wrote: post #26
smlckz wrote: post #9

Sigh. Now browsers are as powerful as OSes. Why do you need OSes? Address bars? People don't need them. Google should tell you which website you're visiting is good or which is bad if they hide the address bar.

I’m not sure why this is being downvoted, this is an accurate albeit sardonic description of what’s happening. People don’t want to visit AMP sites, they want to visit the site that’s the original source for their news, etc...

I mean, depends who you mean by people? I'm pretty happy to go to amp sites. The thing I care about is the content.

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

#34

Post by est31 »

dessant wrote: post #19

When the final version is implemented in a couple of years you will no longer see any URL, that way it won't be as evident that most sites on the web will be loaded from Google. Google is also attacking this issue from a different perspective with Signed Exchanges [1][2], to fake the URL and ensure their success in becoming the gatekeepers of the internet. If you refuse to become a content provider for Google's visio…

Yeah the endgame would involve a play-store like 30% cut of any revenue, subscription, ads, anything. 30% cut from non-Google ad network revenue as well. At that point publishers won't have a choice any more because of the Chrome and Google search monopolies.

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

#35

Post by mschuster91 »

Flimm wrote: post #30
cdmckay wrote: post #5

Hasn’t Safari already been doing this for ages with no issues?

Yes, it has been doing it for ages, both on macOS and iOS.

Which is the reason why I not use Safari on OS X (additionally, the Safari devtools are atrocious).

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

#36

Post by tyingq »

simonkafan wrote: post #29

I still haven't found a good answer why they do this. "Makes it harder to tell if the current site is legitimate" sounds like an excuse. If you are the perfect target for a phishing attack (= clicks on everything, enters passwords everywhere, has no clue about host names) then you also won't be able to understand what Chrome presents you in the address bar after obfuscation. My best explanation so far is that the Chr…

Trying hard not to sound like a conspiracy theorist. However, it's pretty obvious this benefits a walled garden strategy. With things like AMP, "rich snippets", etc, they keep eyeballs on Google owned properties longer. Slowly deprecating urls over time makes it less visually apparent.

AOL was able to sell "keywords" this way, because it wasn't always obvious to their users how to get to the real internet.

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

#37

Post by SifJar »

simonkafan wrote: post #29

I still haven't found a good answer why they do this. "Makes it harder to tell if the current site is legitimate" sounds like an excuse. If you are the perfect target for a phishing attack (= clicks on everything, enters passwords everywhere, has no clue about host names) then you also won't be able to understand what Chrome presents you in the address bar after obfuscation. My best explanation so far is that the Chr…

I think the justification is that some people will think the website is legitimate if a legit hostname appears anywhere in the URL e.g.

http://scamsite.com/microsoft.com/phish

"looks" legit because it contains the string "microsoft.com" (and most "regular" users won't appreciate the different parts of a URL); under the new scheme, that would display only as "scamsite.com" and hopefully people are less likely to enter their microsoft username/password if "microsoft.com" doesn't appear anywhere in the address bar.

I'm not overly convinced of this personally, but I think that's the supposed idea behind it.

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

#38

Post by texasbigdata »

simonkafan wrote: post #29

I still haven't found a good answer why they do this. "Makes it harder to tell if the current site is legitimate" sounds like an excuse. If you are the perfect target for a phishing attack (= clicks on everything, enters passwords everywhere, has no clue about host names) then you also won't be able to understand what Chrome presents you in the address bar after obfuscation. My best explanation so far is that the Chr…

From an advertising perspective if the cost to serve amp is less than ad revenue, this makes perfect sense. Every click on google goes to google, and you’ll like it too bc you won’t have a choice.

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

#40

Post by jefftk »

asimpletune wrote: post #6
cdmckay wrote: post #5

Hasn’t Safari already been doing this for ages with no issues?

No

I just confirmed that desktop Safari has exactly the behavior this post describes. If I visit any Wikipedia page, what I see in the URL bar is "[lock icon] en.wikipedia.org". The path is entirely removed.
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