3 ms·

The URL seems way more important to me than the favicon / ad issue. Its an issue, but the users who can't see the difference didn't know they've been clicking o

by AJ007 7y ago

The URL seems way more important to me than the favicon / ad issue. Its an issue, but the users who can't see the difference didn't know they've been clicking on ads for the past 10 years. #1 What does Google want the web to look like? Look at Google News. #2 Google gets to hijack 20%~ of the screen space to get users to install their own apps, and go back to Google, not onward to the publisher's own website. #3 Removing the URL is the final disambiguation, where no one but the most technical users can go where they want.

jjoonathan 7y ago
AOL Keywords are back!
- ddtaylor 7y ago
  Is it wrong for me to be happy?
shadowgovt 7y ago
> where no one but the most technical users can go where they want In what sense?
- kennyadam 7y ago
  A lot of people just do not understand how to use URLs and EVERYTHING they visit online is done through Google search. I work in a large school and the majority of the students only use their phones to access the internet and everything is abstracted through apps or Google search bars and they just don't understand URLs.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    How does that restrict them from going where they want online?
    - kennyadam 7y ago
      For example, some students use their personal laptops in the sixth form. To access the student intranet, they need to enter the URL (and you ain't finding it on Google) and that's a huge struggle for many of them. Not understanding URLs also affects their ability to see through any bad emails that make it through the spam filters. If you understand URLs, you can hover over a link, see that it's pointing to bankcom.fzzaa.net and see that it's obviously not something you should click on. Quite a few students have asked me how to access the online resources that come with the revision guides they have purchased. Somewhere in the book will be a URL to whatever they need and they just don't recognise what a URL is. They see something beginngin with https:// https:// and it's meaningless to them. Visit this link? How? What is it? This isn't an exhaustive list of reasons, it's not even close. I don't think it makes sense to argue that being completely oblivious to the very basics of something so fundamental to all our lives is something to be dismissed as irrelevant. I also thinking it's bad that Google is the only way so many people know how to access a website. Remember when some blog was ranked #1 for 'facebook login' for a day or so? People were filling the comments section with stuff like "ugh this new facebook is so bad". I think that highlights a serious problem that we're lucky enough to have mostly avoided... so far.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        > To access the student intranet, they need to enter the URL (and you ain't finding it on Google) and that's a huge struggle for many of them. Sorry, copy and paste or clicking on a link they were emailed is a huge struggle? How are they receiving these URLs that they aren't immediately usable? >Not understanding URLs also affects their ability to see through any bad emails that make it through the spam filters. I've seen too many people who ostensibly understand URLs get phished to think it much matters.
        kennyadam 7y ago
        You're being downvoted, which I think is because you've clearly decided nothing I can say will make any difference to you and your replies seem a bit cranky, but I'm not downvoting you. Here's another example for you, that just happened today: On a shared iPad, the iPad was returned with a note saying 'no safari'. I worked out that one student had changed the default Safari search engine to DuckDuckGo. For reasons, the school's ISP blocks DuckDuckGo and visiting it on an iPad just results in a 'connection was lost' message. The next student needed to visit a website called Kahoot and the URL for this site is kahoot.com. Looking at the history I could see the student had just been typing 'kahoot' in to the URL/search bar over and over again. They also tried typing 'google'. At no point did they try entering the URL nor does it seem they even know how to do anything beyond type search keywords.

by AJ007 7y ago

jjoonathan 7y ago

AOL Keywords are back!

ddtaylor 7y ago
Is it wrong for me to be happy?

shadowgovt 7y ago

> where no one but the most technical users can go where they want In what sense?

kennyadam 7y ago
A lot of people just do not understand how to use URLs and EVERYTHING they visit online is done through Google search. I work in a large school and the majority of the students only use their phones to access the internet and everything is abstracted through apps or Google search bars and they just don't understand URLs.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  How does that restrict them from going where they want online?
  - kennyadam 7y ago
    For example, some students use their personal laptops in the sixth form. To access the student intranet, they need to enter the URL (and you ain't finding it on Google) and that's a huge struggle for many of them. Not understanding URLs also affects their ability to see through any bad emails that make it through the spam filters. If you understand URLs, you can hover over a link, see that it's pointing to bankcom.fzzaa.net and see that it's obviously not something you should click on. Quite a few students have asked me how to access the online resources that come with the revision guides they have purchased. Somewhere in the book will be a URL to whatever they need and they just don't recognise what a URL is. They see something beginngin with https:// https:// and it's meaningless to them. Visit this link? How? What is it? This isn't an exhaustive list of reasons, it's not even close. I don't think it makes sense to argue that being completely oblivious to the very basics of something so fundamental to all our lives is something to be dismissed as irrelevant. I also thinking it's bad that Google is the only way so many people know how to access a website. Remember when some blog was ranked #1 for 'facebook login' for a day or so? People were filling the comments section with stuff like "ugh this new facebook is so bad". I think that highlights a serious problem that we're lucky enough to have mostly avoided... so far.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      > To access the student intranet, they need to enter the URL (and you ain't finding it on Google) and that's a huge struggle for many of them. Sorry, copy and paste or clicking on a link they were emailed is a huge struggle? How are they receiving these URLs that they aren't immediately usable? >Not understanding URLs also affects their ability to see through any bad emails that make it through the spam filters. I've seen too many people who ostensibly understand URLs get phished to think it much matters.
      - kennyadam 7y ago
        You're being downvoted, which I think is because you've clearly decided nothing I can say will make any difference to you and your replies seem a bit cranky, but I'm not downvoting you. Here's another example for you, that just happened today: On a shared iPad, the iPad was returned with a note saying 'no safari'. I worked out that one student had changed the default Safari search engine to DuckDuckGo. For reasons, the school's ISP blocks DuckDuckGo and visiting it on an iPad just results in a 'connection was lost' message. The next student needed to visit a website called Kahoot and the URL for this site is kahoot.com. Looking at the history I could see the student had just been typing 'kahoot' in to the URL/search bar over and over again. They also tried typing 'google'. At no point did they try entering the URL nor does it seem they even know how to do anything beyond type search keywords.