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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

#301

Post by cheez »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #169
bitexploder wrote: post #49

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 use Firefox for casual browsing but heavy workloads need a better browser. So I have to use Chromium.

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

#302

Post by _ink_ »

kats wrote: post #295

They're just trying to prevent phishing. Remember when the DNC was hacked? Employees at the DNC were linked to sites that looked exactly like the Google sign-in page, except that the URL was "myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk". picture of the phishing website: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189688/does-goo... From interviews, it seems like there's two features Chrome developers are working on…

How exactly does it help to prevent fishing from domains like my-google-account.tk?

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

#303

Post by p7hwfizeONj »

badwolf wrote: post #145
donor20 wrote: 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…

It looks like non-trivial subdomains will still appear and those seem to me to be the most problematic.

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

#304

Post by jacquesm »

curiousllama wrote: post #232
bitexploder wrote: post #49

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.

AOL had a particular mismanagement problem that Google doesn't have. AOL didn't lack depth: they literally had email (@aol.com), social media (AIM), video-calling (Vonage), cloud filesharing (Xdrive) and so much more. Ultimately, they failed because (1) they were overvalued to begin with and (2) had a bad innovation model (top-down) that led them to (a) over-commit to online ads and (b) under-commit to broadband. Goo…

> Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it.

I could follow you right up to that bit.

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

#305

Post by benatkin »

It's a problematic change, but is actually more usable. Now as a developer, I don't have to worry about changing the URL too much, in order to enable deep linking and the back button. I also don't have to worry about the unsightly but useful query parameters on a search page. This should become the new standard.

It's not like the mailboxes that the USPS is removing, ostensibly in response to declining mail volume. The mail boxes weren't in the way. They were built according to the city codes. Removing them before an election is all downside, and no upside.

The path and query params in the URL are in the way. If you're making a page that's a list of data that gets filtered, each time you change one of the filters, and call replaceState when it changes, it would change the URL bar. That's visual noise.

I used to be against this, because I'm against Google's overall agenda with the web. I thought about it and couldn't deny the usefulness of being consistent across mobile and desktop, and letting the URL change as frequently as is useful from the developer perspective.

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

#306

Post by thethethethe »

filleduchaos wrote: post #226
sethammons wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met very intelligent people who have zero understanding of computers: they have been trained to click certain icons to be able to reach google for a search. I'd be interested in data supporting either more or less fluency than we might expect - but you wont be able to do an online survey to get it :)

> I've met very intelligent people who have zero understanding of computers I'm curious - how do you reconcile thinking they're very intelligent with thinking that they're utterly unable to grasp the basic concepts of computing? And that, precisely, is my point: as an industry we'd rather tell ourselves that it's all so impossibly hard and beyond the grasp of the common person rather than admit that we just suck at e…

> I'm curious - how do you reconcile thinking they're very intelligent with thinking that they're utterly unable to grasp the basic concepts of computing?

Understanding computer systems requires both cultural and institutional knowledge. Not all intelligent people possess this knowledge. My grandpa is a great example. He’s a retired English professor and has deep knowledge of literature and the structure of English language. He’s still incredibly sharp but he cant use a computer to same his damn life.

> as an industry we'd rather tell ourselves that it's all so impossibly hard and beyond the grasp of the common person rather than admit that we just suck at explaining things and educating people outside our bubbles.

Using computers is very hard. I think you are underestimating the amount of time you and others have spent learning “basic” computer skills (email, word processing, web browsing, etc) that many haven’t had the time or opportunity build. I started learning how to use a computer when I was a little kid, maybe 5. over the course of my childhood I built up those skills to the point where they endemic and felt simple, even natural. These things take time and purpose and many very smart people do not get the opportunity or reason to build these skills

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

#307

Post by maest »

thethethethe wrote: post #256
maest wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for balanced debate, but strawmanning doesn't help anyone.

How this this a straw man? Parent is just agreeing with gp that a lot of HN users are obsessed with AMP and it’s supposed evils Disclaimer: googler opinions are my own

Nobody is claiming the following ridiculous statements:

> every single one of the 100k engineers that work there do nothing but dream up ways to trick people into using AMP for some secret illuminati end goal.

> every single UX change to a product with a billion users is part of the vast AMPiracy.

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

#308

Post by bityard »

aftbit wrote: post #268
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have this shell script as `chrome-new` in my path for testing in Chrome and the rare site that is broken in Firefox. It gives me a totally clean profile each time to minimize the amount of Google spying that goes on and reduce my tendency to use the browser for anything but the current task. Sadly despite --no-make-default-browser, it still asks me with an infobar every time I start it. #!/bin/sh test -e "$(which c…

Don't you get the same thing using Guest Mode?

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

#309

Post by RhodesianHunter »

andrewmutz wrote: post #97
khaledh wrote: post #12

IMO this is the real reason why they're pushing hard towards this: However, it's also worth considering that making the web address less important, as this feature does, benefits Google as a company. Google's goal with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and similar technologies is to keep users on Google-hosted content as much as possible, and Chrome for Android already modifies the address bar on AMP pages to hide that…

Specifically how does this change benefit Google? The security problems that it addresses are very concrete and specific. I can clearly see how this change helps novice users. How does this change benefit Google? It seems very hand-wavy. Edit: downvotes, but no explanation of any specific benefit to Google from this change

It's been explained elsewhere in the thread.

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

#310

Post by kats »

_ink_ wrote: post #302
kats wrote: post #295

They're just trying to prevent phishing. Remember when the DNC was hacked? Employees at the DNC were linked to sites that looked exactly like the Google sign-in page, except that the URL was "myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk". picture of the phishing website: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189688/does-goo... From interviews, it seems like there's two features Chrome developers are working on…

How exactly does it help to prevent fishing from domains like my-google-account.tk?

If they hide the subdomain, then if users see google.com at the start of the URL it will actually be google.com. Tricky URLs like "myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk" would get displayed as "com-securitysettingpage.tk" instead.
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