Could Google's Test of Hiding Complete URLs In Chrome Become a Standard? 327
MojoKid (1002251) writes "The address bar in a Web browser has been a standard feature for as long as Web browsers have been around — and that's not going to be changing. What could be, though, is exactly what sort of information is displayed in them. In December, Google began rolling-out a limited test of a feature in Chrome called "Origin Chip", a UI element situated to the left of the address bar. What this "chip" does is show the name of the website you're currently on, while also showing the base URL. To the right, the actual address bar shows nothing, except a prompt to "Search Google or type URL". With this implementation, a descriptive URL would not be seen in the URL bar. Instead, only the root domain would be seen, but to the left of the actual address bar. This effectively means that no matter which page you're on in a given website, all you'll ever see when looking at the address bar is the base URL in the origin chip. What helps here is that the URL is never going to be completely hidden. You'll still be able to hit Ctrl + L to select it, and hopefully be able to click on the origin chip in order to reveal the entire URL. Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously."
Please try harder. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's obvious ways to shoot for the phishing mitigations that this is apparently seeking to achieve, without turning the web into an app store. We used to make fun of stupid flash sites due to lack of linkability, is it really necessary to so thoroughly lunge off the cliff into this idiocy now?
I wonder how many bad guys are already thinking of ways to exploit this. Yes the domain is more prominent, that should have been fixed years ago - but how many sites out there are completely free of XSS vulnerabilites? When this eventually becomes non-optional, how am I going to spot https://mybank.foo/?q="><script>evil; stuff;</script>
?
The perfect irony of course is that Google's own pagerank depends on cross-site linking... By robbing people of URLs, a future generation of net users will grow up never knowing how to share a page with their friends unless there's a sharing mechanism within the same site their friends already use.
Re:And the question of the day is... (Score:2, Interesting)
I doubt this is an issue for most people. They're used to long URLs, they've been around for decades now. Google is just arrogant. They make buggy software and they're constantly looking for ways to change things (gotta keep all those worker bees busy) and they end up making their software worse (like Google Maps). There are many reasons why I prefer Firefox over Chrome and this will be one more to add to my list. My only worry is Mozilla's latest "me too!!" push to make Firefox look like Chrome. God help me if it starts acting like Chrome.
Re:And the question of the day is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted, but having access still has utility.
1. having a reference url that can be shared by im, irc, game chat, socialmedia, etc with simple copy and paste is valuable. This is still quite valid and is reason enough for keeping it visible and accessible.
2. the ability to navigate bad websites when they fail (eg they break the back button purposely) but you really need the information they contain.
3. There are still sites out there that use static urls.. it's just that google and facebook don't, so everyone now assumes no one does.
4. Being able to see fishing urls for what they really are, though this is more useful as a cursor hover in the statusbar, which is another thing the web 2.0 generation is scrambling to get rid of.
Re:And the question of the day is... (Score:5, Interesting)
ht tp://passwordreset.bankofamerica.com.0.34234.com/?=customerpasswordreset&34234
Now show that to your mother and ask her if this is the correct site to reset her bank of America password. Next try and explain to her why, and then come back and tell us how hard it is to grasp.
obviously to promote search (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't have the URL but you have the name of the site and what the page is about " an article on CNN about blah blah" , how would you find it? SEARCH! And perhaps you'd encounter a useful advertisement for blah blah on your way to CNN.
Nice move. No more links, only Google.