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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

#91

Post by MaxBarraclough »

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…

> 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.

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

#92

Post by avasthe »

solarengineer wrote: post #43
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #15

> “Showing the full URL may detract from the parts of the URL that are more important to making a security decision on a webpage," Chromium software engineer Livvie Lin said in a design document earlier this year. I’m a software engineer, too, but I would never make such an important UX decision because I know that is not my area of expertise. I hope they’ve gotten significant user feedback on this before rolling it…

I wonder if Livvie Lin and other Google engineers read such HN threads. What might be their internal discussions, I wonder. How do they justify such design decisions? Are they asked by someone else to figure out how to make such wierd things happen as they just do as ordered?

"Asked by marketing" or something like that.

Fucking suits spoil everything. Engineers are in general, more ethical than suits.

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

#93

Post by IshKebab »

SifJar wrote: post #37
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…

In my experience companies are pretty bad at always using their own domain even for legitimate things. I suspect it is because getting IT to do something like setting up a subdomain in any company I've worked in is virtually impossible, whereas buying a new domain is easy.

So I think most users wouldn't think something like `microsoft-it-support.com` would be suspicious.

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

#94

Post by Ndymium »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #77
distances wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the last days' layoffs direct consequence of that deal expiring later this year?

Nobody knows, since we dont know if the deal will renew

The deal has already been renewed: https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/14/mozilla_google_search...

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

#95

Post by [deleted] »

kergonath wrote: post #51
asimpletune wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The premise “browsers are as powerful as OSes” is dubious. “Why do you need OSes” is something I would expect from someone who does not know how a computer works. Whilst they should probably be tweaked, address bars are central to the web as it is currently. Google should stay as far as possible from me and has no business telling me it approves of the sites I am browsing. I did not downvote the post, but there is no…

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by youngtaff »

dessant wrote: post #87
avasthe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the webshits didn't bloat the web like this, AMP wouldn't have happened. "But all hipsters I know have latest macbook pro" has been the standard answer from all of them.

Lean websites are NOT featured in the Top Stories carousel, only AMP websites, so this is not primarily about page speed. If page speed would be the main reason for AMP, they'd simply continue to demote websites that have poor performance in search results, and they'd curtail the main bloat from sites in Chrome, ads and trackers. But I agree that Google has used this talking point successfully so far to bully publish…

Google plans to change that as part of it's current focus on Core Web Vitals and non-AMP sites will be eligible to be in the Top Stories carousel if they're fast enough

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

#97

Post by andrewmutz »

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

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

#98

Post by mrmcd »

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…

The degree to which HN is obsessed with AMP is hilarious at times. You'd think 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.

If you don't like AMP, that's fine. If you don't like this UX change that's fine too (and I suspect will be easily fixed with an extension). But maybe consider for a moment that not 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

#99

Post by crazypython »

One of my favorite macOS/iOS features is URLs. Most good native apps-- Things, Drafts, DEVONThink, etc.-- support URLs. URLs such as `things://` and `drafts://`. Some accept POST as well as GET.

There's even a specification of an iOS/macOS protocol very reminiscent of webhooks. http://x-callback-url.com/

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

#100

Post by avasthe »

filleduchaos wrote: post #57
Santosh83 wrote: post #47

Vote with your choices (use a different browser). That's the only way to address such behaviour. Yes, I know the 95% out there who don't even know what a browser is but only know Chrome's icon gives access to the web won't understand any of this and they will continue giving mega-corporations a critical mass of unquestioning users to be used, but we have no other options. We either express our voices, no matter if th…

> Yes, I know the 95% out there who don't even know what a browser is but only know Chrome's icon gives access to the web won't understand any of this I find it fascinating how some people in tech bubbles think everyone else is a stupid sheep who can't possibly understand such incredibly complex concepts like what a "browser" is.

Depends. I have seen a lot of people who don't understand such things. And I have seen teachers who think using a different editor to write a program might affect output.
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