7 ms·

Google May Kill Chrome URL Bar

160 points by wiks 16y ago

enomar 16y ago
Pretty sensationalist headline. "Google exploring ways to increase screen space for content" would be more accurate, but I guess that doesn't get clicks.
- pak 16y ago
  No, I think you're underestimating this potential change. It really seems that Google wants people to not realize they are using a web browser when they are browsing the web, and the URL bar is one of the last notable things separating typical browser UI with that of desktop applications. Defaults are important because so few people change them or even notice them. Hiding the URL bar by default will make some new Chrome users not even realize it is there, and yet more will eventually neglect to use it properly. The web then becomes like a HyperCard stack, with Google as the top card (by default). I'm sure this is exactly how Google wants the web to be, but it's not going to help create knowledgable web users. I'm sure you've heard of users that google "www.nytimes.com" to go to the New York Times, because they already don't know how to use the URL bar or what a URL is and equate Google with getting anywhere on the web. Think about how this change is going to influence people of that technical caliber.
  - eco 16y ago
    That was my first thought as well but after reading the article I'm not quite so conspiratorial about it. Regular users do not understand or properly use the URL bar. They may indeed want to do what you say but part of it is definitely just clearing up even more screen real estate and this is a fairly clever way to do it. The URL will still be there but only when you want to see it. If I'm understanding this correctly it'll be while the page is loading or if you click the tab it'll turn into a URL bar. I'm a little torn on the idea because I like quick glances at the URL but it would clear up an entire row and I can still type/see the URL if I need to with an extra click. I think I'll have to actually use for a few hours to decide if I love it or hate it. I did just think of one problem though. Phishing will be even easier so they'll really have to step up their detection and warnings for those.
  - Kylekramer 16y ago
    But this redesign just hides the normal URL bar behind a button. So, basically, exactly the same as things run now except a click away. If things function exactly the same as now, how can people not use it properly? Even in your example, if people were to type in www.nytimes.com, they actually wouldn't search and be directed right to the website. It is actually a net win over the typical googling "facebook.com" story. The only thing that supports your idea is that the URL bar is accessed by a button that says "search", but I can't think of a better name for that. "URL Bar" would just be confusing. Of course, I also think this is a pie in the sky mockup that won't ever make it to prime time due to numerous usability problems, but who knows?
  - Raphael 16y ago
    The combined location and search field in Google Chrome has always gone directly to sites. This isn't likely to change.
- mryall 16y ago
  It also looks like early days in the discussion. Software teams and designers demonstrate wacky ideas in mockups and wireframes all the time that don't actually make it into a shipping product.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    True, but opinions expressed early on have a lot of significance. The direction can be changed much easier. I'm not saying I dislike the proposed changes, but I do think expressing feedback (positive or negative) at the design stage is influential and very worthwhile.
- dmaz 16y ago
  Not to mention those window UI mockups have been on the public Chromium wiki for around a year. (Without watermarks, too :) For the most part, Chromium development happens in the open. There are many interesting ideas, but more newsworthy would be actual (recent) developments.
davej 16y ago
Makes a lot of sense for netbooks where screen real estate is at a premium. I hope that if they make changes they will be user configurable though.
- zrgiu 16y ago
  it will probably be configurable for a few versions of chrome. Probably permanent by Chrome 20 though...
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - pavs 16y ago
    I bet chrome 20 will be out by the year end.
baddox 16y ago
That Sidetab mockup looks great. Back before I switched to Chrome from Firefox, I used vertical tabs in Firefox, and it was awesome.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  It's possible today. about:flags.
  - wfarr 16y ago
    What release are you using and on what OS? I'm running '11.0.672.2 dev' on OS X and don't see such an option.
    - drivebyacct2 16y ago
      o_0 They either removed it, or it's a cr-48 only option. I'd check but it's not around at the moment. Sorry.
      - CrazedGeek 16y ago
        It's on every OS but OS X, for whatever reason.
        wfarr 16y ago
        That is frustrating. :(
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  You can enable it in Chrome right now with the -enable-vertical-tabs command line flag. For reference, here is the source file where most of the switches are laid out: http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_switches.cc http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_s...
  - 16y ago
burgerbrain 16y ago
This will have the effect of further decreasing the positive feedback for HTTPS'd websites. Browsers already have plenty of negative feedback, but have always been sorely lacking positive feedback and this will only exasperate the problem.
- MasterScrat 16y ago
  Another issue regarding security, is the fact that a phishing website will look a lot more convincing if you're by default only exposed to its page title.
  - Bossman 16y ago
    You bring up a great point. For this reason, I really hope Google makes improvements for his. It would be great to have a notification area on or right near the tab that alerts you to possible phishing attempts.
  - etcet 16y ago
    Do you really think that Google are going to hide their https signals? If anything, hiding the URL gives phishers less to use. So marlinspike demonstrated that you can 'spoof' "https:// https:// and fake a secure looking favicon. But can you spoof the browser detecting a secure connection and then turning the page tab bright green? I don't know how they are going to do it but I bet their positive feedback signals are going to be strong and very hard to spoof.
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      "But can you spoof the browser detecting a secure connection and then turning the page tab bright green?" The important part of what Marlinspike showed is that you don't have to. He ran his setup on a Tor exit node, the users of which are presumably more security minded than the rest of the general population, and not a single user balked at the lack of positive feedback. HSTS is a real solution, but not a scalable one.
SandB0x 16y ago
One of my favourite things about Chrome is its efficient use of vertical space. Here's Chrome side by side with Firefox on my laptop: http://i.imgur.com/7Sda0.png http://i.imgur.com/7Sda0.png (in fact, when Chrome is maximised the space above the tab disappears, saving another 15 or so pixels) Would be very happy with a little more room though. The compact mode looks good, as long as the keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+k or Alt+d) still work. Edit: Thanks, will look into your suggestions. These are the basic installs of Chrome and FF however, so I think it's a fair comparison.
- sp332 16y ago
  The Firefox 4.0 beta is much better on Windows 7. http://i.imgur.com/iFGU8.png http://i.imgur.com/iFGU8.png But for some reason the menu bar still shows up by default on Linux (you have to press the Alt key to show the menus on Win7).
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  Try dropping window decorations. I did over a year ago and after the first day haven't missed them at all.
  - vijaydev 16y ago
    Dumb qn: What are window decorations?
    - adbge 16y ago
      The borders around a program, including the title bar. Some examples of a desktop without window decorations: http://awesome.naquadah.org/images/screen.png http://awesome.naquadah.org/images/screen.png http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/content/reviews/WindowManagers/Screenshot-Xmonad.png http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/content/reviews/WindowManag...
- ElbertF 16y ago
  I've customized my Firefox to be more compact than Chrome: http://i.imgur.com/fPG3k.png http://i.imgur.com/fPG3k.png
slmichalk 16y ago
I think it would be neat if browsers worked more like mobile browsers, where they are full screen by default and you press a button to make the ui appear. I am thinking about Dolphin browser for Android specifically.
kingsidharth 16y ago
This will be a nice experiment. As a UI designer, I am always looking for part of the interface that are not used much and replace them with what is used more often - so this thing totally makes sense. It will be interesting to see what it results into - a frustrating experience or more vertical space and distraction free UI.
Zaim2 16y ago
I would've thought better tab management would be first priority, as nameless mountains are really grating. Tab groups can't come quickly enough.
Bossman 16y ago
Interesting changes. Not gonna have a real opinion either way until I get to try it first hand, though. Maybe I'll move to the dev channel when the new UI hits there. Reading the article, though, I'm very interested with the way they're going to handle multiple users - mainly this: > If a user closes three windows with three different identities and the reopens three windows, the windows would assume the identity of the three identities again, Google said.
- mckoss 16y ago
  I agree the multi user aspect is an area that could use improvement. This would imply that you'd be able to have a different set of cookies in each window - something that forces many of us to use multiple browsers or incognito mode to achieve. One of my biggest gripes about Google's account management, is that you are logged in automatically across all Google properties. I use multiple accounts all the time. Just because I'm logged in to one account on Gmail, doesn't mean I want to use the same account when I visit AdSense, or Google Checkout. This new capability would at least allow me to work around Google's flawed global account sign-in.
  - Bossman 16y ago
    Interesting. Never really thought about this. I have multiple Google accounts, but never really sign in with both on any device besides my Android phone.
Wawl 16y ago
I personally use firefox with pentadactyl, which by default removes the URL bar. It was a bit akward at the beginning but it's a major gain of space (especially in fullscreen mode) and there's nothing I could do with the URL bar that I can't do with keybindings. For instance, if I want to edit the current page's url, I type "y o <cmd v>" to paste it in the status bar.
- tobik 16y ago
  You might be interested to know that pressing "O" does the same thing as "y o <cmd v>" ;-)
gsivil 16y ago
Along the same lines I was thinking of the following alternative: having no url bar at all but if you press let's say Ctrl+g (put whatever is available here) the url bar appears in the center of the screen and it disappears when you press Enter. Do you think that something like that could make sense?
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  Safari already does this. You can reduce the Safari UI to just a window and a title bar; the location bar will appear automatically when you hit Command+L or open a tab, and disappear automatically when you hit Return.
  - gsivil 16y ago
    Thanks! Sorry for rediscovering the wheel :)
bane 16y ago
Maybe they should move the unreadable mess of microtabs I have on the top of my window to the vast swath of blank area on the left or right of my widescreen monitor (yes, I have 30 or 40 tabs open at any one time, rendering the top bar almost useless).
dtran 16y ago
Does Chrome send back (anonymized) data about usage? Or are there instrumented versions of Chrome/Chromium that do do this? I wonder what the usage numbers are for how often you focus on the URL bar and change it within one tab. I notice in my own usage, I pretty much ALWAYS open a NEW tab to go to a new site and never touch the URL bar, so compacting it or hiding it behind an extra click seems like good UX design if it's backed up by usage data.
- salmonsnide 16y ago
  In preferences there's an option to send usage statistics and crash reports to Google.
jackfoxy 16y ago
Chrome is my primary browser, and while I applaud increasing space devoted to content, I wish Chrome had better support for alternate search engines. My primary searches are (in order of use) Google, Wikipedia, Amazon. By better support I mean I don't like the way it works in the omni-box. I think the old-fashioned way done in IE8 and FF of having a dedicated search box is much more convenient and easier for most users to configure, but I'm open to other alternatives. I understand IE9 has jumped on the bandwagon and dropped the search box too. [EDIT] My biggest beef: remembering to substitute underscore for space in Wikipedia search terms.
- tonfa 16y ago
  Aren't keyword search sufficient? Like "w something" to search wikipedia for "something".
  - jackfoxy 16y ago
    OK, I take this one back, but only because wikipedia fixed the problem on their end. If you do the Google Omni-box key-word > tab > search term it formerly worked only with a single search term. If you tried searching for "casey jones", for instance it broke because the omni-box only creates a url, it doesn't use the site's native search engine. So you end up with "%20" between the terms. Apparently wikipedia saw this problem enough times to build in the smarts to redirect to "casey_jones".
- nl 16y ago
  Regarding the underscore problem, it should be possible to write an extension to fix that using the new OmniBox API. (I don't think plain OpenSearch descriptors can do it themselves though)
  - jackfoxy 16y ago
    Exactly my point. Outside of the tiny number of users who have the skill and inclination to write a hack, there are countless more who simply want it to work from the get-go. "Browser" is an unfortunate term for what we do with this kind of software component. Browsing may be the number one thing we use it for, but the second is clearly searching.
thought_alarm 16y ago
Incidentally, the original NCSA Mosaic browser had no URL bar. In its place was a drop-down list containing the browse history. To type a URL you would select "Open URL" from the menu, or hit Command+U. Likewise, early versions of Netscape also hid the URL bar by default, and used Command+L to present a URL dialog box (behavior that's still present in Firefox today, when the URL bar is hidden).
joshz 16y ago
Mid last year there was a tab option to hide the url bar, I can't remember if only for pinned tabs or regular ones also. For some reason that got removed and now we have separate app windows in recent releases, which in my opinion, are somewhat annoying mostly due to tabs originating from app window being opened in separate browser window.
nowarninglabel 16y ago
Am I the only one that after looking at the mockup tried going to google.com/ponies and was subsequently disappointed?
davros 16y ago
They'll have to pry my url from my cold dead hands! Seriously, no always-visible url and I go back to firefox.
- dwc 16y ago
  Then I'm sure you'll be back in FF soon enough. When they talked about ceasing to display the protocol, I thought surely it would just be a default and I could put it back. No such luck. I'd expect this to go the same way. It's their way or the highway. I'm still running Chrome, but only until I get around to switching. I won't install it again. Not that Google cares at all what J. Random Hacker thinks.
cduruk 16y ago
I wrote about this at one point. Here's a link: http://www.quora.com/Can-Duruk/Web-Development/URL-1 http://www.quora.com/Can-Duruk/Web-Development/URL-1
yuhong 16y ago
Reminds me of this: http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/04/address-bar-and-sea-of-darkness.html http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/04/address-bar-and-sea-of-d...
bluesnowmonkey 16y ago
> It is somewhat surprising that Google is not pursuing the sidetab navigation version [...]. The company said that this layout would waste space for users who do not use many tabs, that it only works nicely on screen layouts that are 1366 pixels wide and that the layout does not relate well to Chromium browser overall. Yeah that's a nice list of reasons not to do the obviously right thing. Take that very page. Its viewable area is 985px by 4701px. Even my little 1280x800 screen has huge gray bars on the left and right sides to fill up the wasted horizontal space. I have to scroll vertically seven times to see it all. Do Chrome devs not use widescreen monitors? What makes them think cramming weird, non-idiomatic UI elements into the window's precious vertical space makes any sense at all? That sidetab version is beautiful.
antimatter15 16y ago
I have serious doubts this information is up to date. The mockup for the interface without a URL bar was made something like a year ago, when Chrome OS was first announced. It had an actual implementation of the said compact navigation that was removed soon afterwards. That document existed at that time and I think they just haven't updated it. If I recall correctly, Compact Navigation looked like IE9, with a mini omni box that fit on the tab row. I thought it was ugly, and the tab strip is cramped enough already without the omnibox, navigation and certainly not extensions. Also, the multiple profiles thing isn't new. As a random note, does the Chrome team have something with ponies? The mockup shows the url google.com/ponies (just checked, 404). One of the Cr-48 hardware versions is named Pony.
slowpoison 16y ago
This is probably based on the usage data the Chrome uploads to Google. People are perhaps not directly using the URL bar that much.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
statictype 16y ago
As long as Cmd-L (or Ctrl-L) brings up the location bar, I'm onboard with this change.
p858snake 16y ago
If google really wanted to do something about the space, they would look towards the download bar.
- anonymoushn 16y ago
  You can just close that...
  - p858snake 16y ago
    Yes but the next time you download/save something it appears again (and can be a pain if you are downloading a few things in one go) compared to Firefox where you can hide its download manager behind the window. As well as the height of it is over what it really needs to be, The download bar in Chrome really shouldn't need to be any taller than the tab bar.
jpalomaki 16y ago
If I don't have the URL bar, how can I tell the difference between a legitimate site and phishing site?
trezor 16y ago
Looks like how tabs and location-bar is intermixed in MSIE9. Must admit I'm not too happy about it.
wooptoo 16y ago
They're focusing on the wrong things. The compact UI is very confusing. The current UI is fine, don't screw with it just to save an extra 10 pixels of vertical space. How about freezing feature changes for 3 months and fixing bugs?

160 points by wiks 16y ago

Pretty sensationalist headline. "Google exploring ways to increase screen space for content" would be more accurate, but I guess that doesn't get clicks.

pak 16y ago
No, I think you're underestimating this potential change. It really seems that Google wants people to not realize they are using a web browser when they are browsing the web, and the URL bar is one of the last notable things separating typical browser UI with that of desktop applications. Defaults are important because so few people change them or even notice them. Hiding the URL bar by default will make some new Chrome users not even realize it is there, and yet more will eventually neglect to use it properly. The web then becomes like a HyperCard stack, with Google as the top card (by default). I'm sure this is exactly how Google wants the web to be, but it's not going to help create knowledgable web users. I'm sure you've heard of users that google "www.nytimes.com" to go to the New York Times, because they already don't know how to use the URL bar or what a URL is and equate Google with getting anywhere on the web. Think about how this change is going to influence people of that technical caliber.
- eco 16y ago
  That was my first thought as well but after reading the article I'm not quite so conspiratorial about it. Regular users do not understand or properly use the URL bar. They may indeed want to do what you say but part of it is definitely just clearing up even more screen real estate and this is a fairly clever way to do it. The URL will still be there but only when you want to see it. If I'm understanding this correctly it'll be while the page is loading or if you click the tab it'll turn into a URL bar. I'm a little torn on the idea because I like quick glances at the URL but it would clear up an entire row and I can still type/see the URL if I need to with an extra click. I think I'll have to actually use for a few hours to decide if I love it or hate it. I did just think of one problem though. Phishing will be even easier so they'll really have to step up their detection and warnings for those.
- Kylekramer 16y ago
  But this redesign just hides the normal URL bar behind a button. So, basically, exactly the same as things run now except a click away. If things function exactly the same as now, how can people not use it properly? Even in your example, if people were to type in www.nytimes.com, they actually wouldn't search and be directed right to the website. It is actually a net win over the typical googling "facebook.com" story. The only thing that supports your idea is that the URL bar is accessed by a button that says "search", but I can't think of a better name for that. "URL Bar" would just be confusing. Of course, I also think this is a pie in the sky mockup that won't ever make it to prime time due to numerous usability problems, but who knows?
- Raphael 16y ago
  The combined location and search field in Google Chrome has always gone directly to sites. This isn't likely to change.
mryall 16y ago
It also looks like early days in the discussion. Software teams and designers demonstrate wacky ideas in mockups and wireframes all the time that don't actually make it into a shipping product.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  True, but opinions expressed early on have a lot of significance. The direction can be changed much easier. I'm not saying I dislike the proposed changes, but I do think expressing feedback (positive or negative) at the design stage is influential and very worthwhile.
dmaz 16y ago
Not to mention those window UI mockups have been on the public Chromium wiki for around a year. (Without watermarks, too :) For the most part, Chromium development happens in the open. There are many interesting ideas, but more newsworthy would be actual (recent) developments.

davej 16y ago

Makes a lot of sense for netbooks where screen real estate is at a premium. I hope that if they make changes they will be user configurable though.

zrgiu 16y ago
it will probably be configurable for a few versions of chrome. Probably permanent by Chrome 20 though...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- pavs 16y ago
  I bet chrome 20 will be out by the year end.

baddox 16y ago

That Sidetab mockup looks great. Back before I switched to Chrome from Firefox, I used vertical tabs in Firefox, and it was awesome.

drivebyacct2 16y ago
It's possible today. about:flags.
- wfarr 16y ago
  What release are you using and on what OS? I'm running '11.0.672.2 dev' on OS X and don't see such an option.
  - drivebyacct2 16y ago
    o_0 They either removed it, or it's a cr-48 only option. I'd check but it's not around at the moment. Sorry.
    - CrazedGeek 16y ago
      It's on every OS but OS X, for whatever reason.
      - wfarr 16y ago
        That is frustrating. :(
stanleydrew 16y ago
You can enable it in Chrome right now with the -enable-vertical-tabs command line flag. For reference, here is the source file where most of the switches are laid out: http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_switches.cc http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_s...
- 16y ago

burgerbrain 16y ago

This will have the effect of further decreasing the positive feedback for HTTPS'd websites. Browsers already have plenty of negative feedback, but have always been sorely lacking positive feedback and this will only exasperate the problem.

MasterScrat 16y ago
Another issue regarding security, is the fact that a phishing website will look a lot more convincing if you're by default only exposed to its page title.
- Bossman 16y ago
  You bring up a great point. For this reason, I really hope Google makes improvements for his. It would be great to have a notification area on or right near the tab that alerts you to possible phishing attempts.
- etcet 16y ago
  Do you really think that Google are going to hide their https signals? If anything, hiding the URL gives phishers less to use. So marlinspike demonstrated that you can 'spoof' "https:// https:// and fake a secure looking favicon. But can you spoof the browser detecting a secure connection and then turning the page tab bright green? I don't know how they are going to do it but I bet their positive feedback signals are going to be strong and very hard to spoof.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    "But can you spoof the browser detecting a secure connection and then turning the page tab bright green?" The important part of what Marlinspike showed is that you don't have to. He ran his setup on a Tor exit node, the users of which are presumably more security minded than the rest of the general population, and not a single user balked at the lack of positive feedback. HSTS is a real solution, but not a scalable one.

SandB0x 16y ago

One of my favourite things about Chrome is its efficient use of vertical space. Here's Chrome side by side with Firefox on my laptop: http://i.imgur.com/7Sda0.png http://i.imgur.com/7Sda0.png (in fact, when Chrome is maximised the space above the tab disappears, saving another 15 or so pixels) Would be very happy with a little more room though. The compact mode looks good, as long as the keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+k or Alt+d) still work. Edit: Thanks, will look into your suggestions. These are the basic installs of Chrome and FF however, so I think it's a fair comparison.

sp332 16y ago
The Firefox 4.0 beta is much better on Windows 7. http://i.imgur.com/iFGU8.png http://i.imgur.com/iFGU8.png But for some reason the menu bar still shows up by default on Linux (you have to press the Alt key to show the menus on Win7).
burgerbrain 16y ago
Try dropping window decorations. I did over a year ago and after the first day haven't missed them at all.
- vijaydev 16y ago
  Dumb qn: What are window decorations?
  - adbge 16y ago
    The borders around a program, including the title bar. Some examples of a desktop without window decorations: http://awesome.naquadah.org/images/screen.png http://awesome.naquadah.org/images/screen.png http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/content/reviews/WindowManagers/Screenshot-Xmonad.png http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/content/reviews/WindowManag...
ElbertF 16y ago
I've customized my Firefox to be more compact than Chrome: http://i.imgur.com/fPG3k.png http://i.imgur.com/fPG3k.png

slmichalk 16y ago

I think it would be neat if browsers worked more like mobile browsers, where they are full screen by default and you press a button to make the ui appear. I am thinking about Dolphin browser for Android specifically.

kingsidharth 16y ago

This will be a nice experiment. As a UI designer, I am always looking for part of the interface that are not used much and replace them with what is used more often - so this thing totally makes sense. It will be interesting to see what it results into - a frustrating experience or more vertical space and distraction free UI.

Zaim2 16y ago

I would've thought better tab management would be first priority, as nameless mountains are really grating. Tab groups can't come quickly enough.

Bossman 16y ago

Interesting changes. Not gonna have a real opinion either way until I get to try it first hand, though. Maybe I'll move to the dev channel when the new UI hits there. Reading the article, though, I'm very interested with the way they're going to handle multiple users - mainly this: > If a user closes three windows with three different identities and the reopens three windows, the windows would assume the identity of the three identities again, Google said.

mckoss 16y ago
I agree the multi user aspect is an area that could use improvement. This would imply that you'd be able to have a different set of cookies in each window - something that forces many of us to use multiple browsers or incognito mode to achieve. One of my biggest gripes about Google's account management, is that you are logged in automatically across all Google properties. I use multiple accounts all the time. Just because I'm logged in to one account on Gmail, doesn't mean I want to use the same account when I visit AdSense, or Google Checkout. This new capability would at least allow me to work around Google's flawed global account sign-in.
- Bossman 16y ago
  Interesting. Never really thought about this. I have multiple Google accounts, but never really sign in with both on any device besides my Android phone.

Wawl 16y ago

I personally use firefox with pentadactyl, which by default removes the URL bar. It was a bit akward at the beginning but it's a major gain of space (especially in fullscreen mode) and there's nothing I could do with the URL bar that I can't do with keybindings. For instance, if I want to edit the current page's url, I type "y o <cmd v>" to paste it in the status bar.

tobik 16y ago
You might be interested to know that pressing "O" does the same thing as "y o <cmd v>" ;-)

gsivil 16y ago

Along the same lines I was thinking of the following alternative: having no url bar at all but if you press let's say Ctrl+g (put whatever is available here) the url bar appears in the center of the screen and it disappears when you press Enter. Do you think that something like that could make sense?

thought_alarm 16y ago
Safari already does this. You can reduce the Safari UI to just a window and a title bar; the location bar will appear automatically when you hit Command+L or open a tab, and disappear automatically when you hit Return.
- gsivil 16y ago
  Thanks! Sorry for rediscovering the wheel :)

bane 16y ago

Maybe they should move the unreadable mess of microtabs I have on the top of my window to the vast swath of blank area on the left or right of my widescreen monitor (yes, I have 30 or 40 tabs open at any one time, rendering the top bar almost useless).

dtran 16y ago

Does Chrome send back (anonymized) data about usage? Or are there instrumented versions of Chrome/Chromium that do do this? I wonder what the usage numbers are for how often you focus on the URL bar and change it within one tab. I notice in my own usage, I pretty much ALWAYS open a NEW tab to go to a new site and never touch the URL bar, so compacting it or hiding it behind an extra click seems like good UX design if it's backed up by usage data.

salmonsnide 16y ago
In preferences there's an option to send usage statistics and crash reports to Google.

jackfoxy 16y ago

Chrome is my primary browser, and while I applaud increasing space devoted to content, I wish Chrome had better support for alternate search engines. My primary searches are (in order of use) Google, Wikipedia, Amazon. By better support I mean I don't like the way it works in the omni-box. I think the old-fashioned way done in IE8 and FF of having a dedicated search box is much more convenient and easier for most users to configure, but I'm open to other alternatives. I understand IE9 has jumped on the bandwagon and dropped the search box too. [EDIT] My biggest beef: remembering to substitute underscore for space in Wikipedia search terms.

tonfa 16y ago
Aren't keyword search sufficient? Like "w something" to search wikipedia for "something".
- jackfoxy 16y ago
  OK, I take this one back, but only because wikipedia fixed the problem on their end. If you do the Google Omni-box key-word > tab > search term it formerly worked only with a single search term. If you tried searching for "casey jones", for instance it broke because the omni-box only creates a url, it doesn't use the site's native search engine. So you end up with "%20" between the terms. Apparently wikipedia saw this problem enough times to build in the smarts to redirect to "casey_jones".
nl 16y ago
Regarding the underscore problem, it should be possible to write an extension to fix that using the new OmniBox API. (I don't think plain OpenSearch descriptors can do it themselves though)
- jackfoxy 16y ago
  Exactly my point. Outside of the tiny number of users who have the skill and inclination to write a hack, there are countless more who simply want it to work from the get-go. "Browser" is an unfortunate term for what we do with this kind of software component. Browsing may be the number one thing we use it for, but the second is clearly searching.

thought_alarm 16y ago

Incidentally, the original NCSA Mosaic browser had no URL bar. In its place was a drop-down list containing the browse history. To type a URL you would select "Open URL" from the menu, or hit Command+U. Likewise, early versions of Netscape also hid the URL bar by default, and used Command+L to present a URL dialog box (behavior that's still present in Firefox today, when the URL bar is hidden).

joshz 16y ago

Mid last year there was a tab option to hide the url bar, I can't remember if only for pinned tabs or regular ones also. For some reason that got removed and now we have separate app windows in recent releases, which in my opinion, are somewhat annoying mostly due to tabs originating from app window being opened in separate browser window.

nowarninglabel 16y ago

Am I the only one that after looking at the mockup tried going to google.com/ponies and was subsequently disappointed?

davros 16y ago

They'll have to pry my url from my cold dead hands! Seriously, no always-visible url and I go back to firefox.

dwc 16y ago
Then I'm sure you'll be back in FF soon enough. When they talked about ceasing to display the protocol, I thought surely it would just be a default and I could put it back. No such luck. I'd expect this to go the same way. It's their way or the highway. I'm still running Chrome, but only until I get around to switching. I won't install it again. Not that Google cares at all what J. Random Hacker thinks.

cduruk 16y ago

I wrote about this at one point. Here's a link: http://www.quora.com/Can-Duruk/Web-Development/URL-1 http://www.quora.com/Can-Duruk/Web-Development/URL-1

yuhong 16y ago

Reminds me of this: http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/04/address-bar-and-sea-of-darkness.html http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/04/address-bar-and-sea-of-d...

bluesnowmonkey 16y ago

> It is somewhat surprising that Google is not pursuing the sidetab navigation version [...]. The company said that this layout would waste space for users who do not use many tabs, that it only works nicely on screen layouts that are 1366 pixels wide and that the layout does not relate well to Chromium browser overall. Yeah that's a nice list of reasons not to do the obviously right thing. Take that very page. Its viewable area is 985px by 4701px. Even my little 1280x800 screen has huge gray bars on the left and right sides to fill up the wasted horizontal space. I have to scroll vertically seven times to see it all. Do Chrome devs not use widescreen monitors? What makes them think cramming weird, non-idiomatic UI elements into the window's precious vertical space makes any sense at all? That sidetab version is beautiful.

antimatter15 16y ago

I have serious doubts this information is up to date. The mockup for the interface without a URL bar was made something like a year ago, when Chrome OS was first announced. It had an actual implementation of the said compact navigation that was removed soon afterwards. That document existed at that time and I think they just haven't updated it. If I recall correctly, Compact Navigation looked like IE9, with a mini omni box that fit on the tab row. I thought it was ugly, and the tab strip is cramped enough already without the omnibox, navigation and certainly not extensions. Also, the multiple profiles thing isn't new. As a random note, does the Chrome team have something with ponies? The mockup shows the url google.com/ponies (just checked, 404). One of the Cr-48 hardware versions is named Pony.

slowpoison 16y ago

This is probably based on the usage data the Chrome uploads to Google. People are perhaps not directly using the URL bar that much.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

statictype 16y ago

As long as Cmd-L (or Ctrl-L) brings up the location bar, I'm onboard with this change.

p858snake 16y ago

If google really wanted to do something about the space, they would look towards the download bar.

anonymoushn 16y ago
You can just close that...
- p858snake 16y ago
  Yes but the next time you download/save something it appears again (and can be a pain if you are downloading a few things in one go) compared to Firefox where you can hide its download manager behind the window. As well as the height of it is over what it really needs to be, The download bar in Chrome really shouldn't need to be any taller than the tab bar.

jpalomaki 16y ago

If I don't have the URL bar, how can I tell the difference between a legitimate site and phishing site?

trezor 16y ago

Looks like how tabs and location-bar is intermixed in MSIE9. Must admit I'm not too happy about it.

wooptoo 16y ago

They're focusing on the wrong things. The compact UI is very confusing. The current UI is fine, don't screw with it just to save an extra 10 pixels of vertical space. How about freezing feature changes for 3 months and fixing bugs?