5 ms·

If the browser uses some technique to detect that www.domain.com is functionally identical to domain.com for a given domain, then I don't see a serious problem

If the browser uses some technique to detect that www.domain.com is functionally identical to domain.com for a given domain, then I don't see a serious problem with this. But if they are short of that certainty, they're obscuring a critical part of the URL, and harming usability (e.g., if I want to jot down a site's URL for later use, I might get something unexpected).

saagarjha 8y ago
> If the browser uses some technique to detect that www.domain.com is functionally identical to domain.com for a given domain, then I don't see a serious problem with this. Say, for example, if the canonical URL doesn't have a "www" in it?
teilo 8y ago
That's not the case. I run a server that does not respond to "www." If I enter "www.myserver.com" into the address bar, I get a DNS lookup failure, but the address bar is now showing "myserver.com." That's damn confusing, and this is an idiotic default on Chrome's part.
- lozenge 8y ago
  That seems like an edge case worth submitting a separate bug for.
  - crispyporkbites 8y ago
    It's not an edge case, it's a specific customization required to support Chrome browsers only.
  - king_phil 8y ago
    Think public suffixes! It is long, so definitely not an edge case. You can write a small script to look up all PSL domains and check if the www and APEX domain has the same dns records. Our implementation (we control 15 or so) does not, have a www-subdomain for the domains. Anybody can register the www-subdomains.
- kevindqc 8y ago
  Likewise, something is saying that their bank only works through www.bank.com. But the URL says bank.com. If they try to type in bank.com it doesn't work. But hey, now we don't have to see www which has been around forever and is a surprise to no one!
  - dagenix 8y ago
    Why would you want to do that?
saidajigumi 8y ago
Funny enough, I visited a site for some task or other just yesterday for which I just typed the base domain, and got ... nothing. It still required the "www." prefix -- no redirect, "ANAME" DNS-side hacks, VIPs or anything in place to make the base domain a reachable URL. This new Chrome change, if it's truly doing naive subdomain hiding, would be a really bad UX for sites like that.
cbhl 8y ago
If you click into the address bar to copy/paste, the full URL will come back.
- strictnein 8y ago
  On a Mac it requires two clicks. First click gives you a suggested list of URLs and related searches. Second click gives you the full domain name.
- rsync 8y ago
  "If you click into the address bar to copy/paste, the full URL will come back." Which is also terrible behavior. Unwanted characters hidden into your paste buffer is at best unexpected and capricious behavior and at worst a source of serious, possibly catastrophic consequences (depending on what, and where, you are pasting). How soon until a doctored up paste buffer contains, by design, a newline character ? I'm sure there must be some use-case that (appears to) call for this ...
  - EvanAnderson 8y ago
    Thank you for validating that I'm not the only person who hates Chrome's horrible clipboard behavior. When I highlight something and copy it to my clipboard I expect exactly what I've highlighted to be on my clipboard-- not some editorialized version of it.
ars 8y ago
From one of the comments there: http://www.pool.ntp.org http://www.pool.ntp.org vs http://pool.ntp.org http://pool.ntp.org ? One takes you to the website about the project, the other goes to a random ntp server.
cpburns2009 8y ago
Well, browsers already support a better form of this feature. On the server you setup a redirect to your preferred domain. You redirect https://www.example.com https://www.example.com to https://example.com https://example.com or vise versa.

saagarjha 8y ago

> If the browser uses some technique to detect that www.domain.com is functionally identical to domain.com for a given domain, then I don't see a serious problem with this. Say, for example, if the canonical URL doesn't have a "www" in it?

teilo 8y ago

That's not the case. I run a server that does not respond to "www." If I enter "www.myserver.com" into the address bar, I get a DNS lookup failure, but the address bar is now showing "myserver.com." That's damn confusing, and this is an idiotic default on Chrome's part.

lozenge 8y ago
That seems like an edge case worth submitting a separate bug for.
- crispyporkbites 8y ago
  It's not an edge case, it's a specific customization required to support Chrome browsers only.
- king_phil 8y ago
  Think public suffixes! It is long, so definitely not an edge case. You can write a small script to look up all PSL domains and check if the www and APEX domain has the same dns records. Our implementation (we control 15 or so) does not, have a www-subdomain for the domains. Anybody can register the www-subdomains.
kevindqc 8y ago
Likewise, something is saying that their bank only works through www.bank.com. But the URL says bank.com. If they try to type in bank.com it doesn't work. But hey, now we don't have to see www which has been around forever and is a surprise to no one!
- dagenix 8y ago
  Why would you want to do that?

saidajigumi 8y ago

Funny enough, I visited a site for some task or other just yesterday for which I just typed the base domain, and got ... nothing. It still required the "www." prefix -- no redirect, "ANAME" DNS-side hacks, VIPs or anything in place to make the base domain a reachable URL. This new Chrome change, if it's truly doing naive subdomain hiding, would be a really bad UX for sites like that.

cbhl 8y ago

If you click into the address bar to copy/paste, the full URL will come back.

strictnein 8y ago
On a Mac it requires two clicks. First click gives you a suggested list of URLs and related searches. Second click gives you the full domain name.
rsync 8y ago
"If you click into the address bar to copy/paste, the full URL will come back." Which is also terrible behavior. Unwanted characters hidden into your paste buffer is at best unexpected and capricious behavior and at worst a source of serious, possibly catastrophic consequences (depending on what, and where, you are pasting). How soon until a doctored up paste buffer contains, by design, a newline character ? I'm sure there must be some use-case that (appears to) call for this ...
- EvanAnderson 8y ago
  Thank you for validating that I'm not the only person who hates Chrome's horrible clipboard behavior. When I highlight something and copy it to my clipboard I expect exactly what I've highlighted to be on my clipboard-- not some editorialized version of it.

ars 8y ago

From one of the comments there: http://www.pool.ntp.org http://www.pool.ntp.org vs http://pool.ntp.org http://pool.ntp.org ? One takes you to the website about the project, the other goes to a random ntp server.

cpburns2009 8y ago

Well, browsers already support a better form of this feature. On the server you setup a redirect to your preferred domain. You redirect https://www.example.com https://www.example.com to https://example.com https://example.com or vise versa.