5 ms·
What if the user sees "Wik1pedia.org/wiki/Canada"? Or "аррӏе.com"? Hiding random parts of the address isn't going to make browsing the web better. The main pur
by peterwwillis 8y ago
What if the user sees "Wik1pedia.org/wiki/Canada"? Or "аррӏе.com"?
Hiding random parts of the address isn't going to make browsing the web better. The main purpose of URLs is for hyperlinks, not as a highly intuitive user interface. Users who don't know how URLs work don't care what is up there. They only care that what they are looking at is what they expect, and a way to get to where they want to go. And that's a complicated problem.
The URL bar hiding thing isn't for users, it's for Google to push Google search. That's why they attempted to remove the URL bar entirely four years ago and replace it with a search bar.
- md_ 8y agoDon’t Firefox and Safari also have a single bar for searches? Yet neither company runs a search engine. I don’t suppose it’s possible this is just better for most users?
- Multicomp 8y agoFirefox will allow you to search via the address bar, but it still has a separate search bar to the right by default.
- joshuamorton 8y agoThis doesn't appear to be the case? [1]:https://www.techworld.com/download/internet-tools/firefox-63-beta-3-3250000/ https://www.techworld.com/download/internet-tools/firefox-63...
- r3bl 8y agoIt still exists, but the default changed. Now you can go to menu -> Customize and drag it where you want.
- qu4z-2 8y agoAlso, if you go into about:config and turn off keyword.enabled, the address bar will no longer search. It's very useful if you don't want to Google internal/client URLs just because you accidentally copied a space at the start or the hostname doesn't resolve in your current environment, etc.
- UncleMeat 8y agoUsers don't see that. Expecting users to use the URL bar to detect phishing via homoglyphs is insanity.
- peterwwillis 8y agoRight. So messing with the URL bar is pointless. If people actually don't like it, get rid of it, but provide some other means to establish authenticity of what you're looking at.
- ehsankia 8y agoThat has nothing to do my argument. Just because people can't detect homoglyphs doesn't mean we should keep overloaded urls and shouldn't strive to make them more user friendly. There's still value to be gained from having easily readable urls.