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While this might be useful for a casual user, hidden URLs are a huge problem for web developers. Asking for a screenshot from client is not enough, now I'll hav
by butz 6y ago
While this might be useful for a casual user, hidden URLs are a huge problem for web developers. Asking for a screenshot from client is not enough, now I'll have to provide additional instructions how to copy/paste full URL when reporting issues.
Not to mention all possible problems with misconfigured servers when www and www-less domains lead to same website, but some script refuses to work on one of those. While it was easy to spot with just a glance at URL bar, now one has to do additional clicking or opening devtools.
Probably we are at the crossroads where developers need separate, not dumbed-down version of browser.
- ck2 6y agothere is a trick for at least chrome before 85, where if you install the google-made extension "suspicious site reporter" it will show the full url including protocol (which you can't even do with flags so it tampers with something internally which means they don't have to do this at all)
- londons_explore 6y agoI highly doubt a non-default extension has extra permissions that aren't available to regular extensions... Can anyone reproduce this?
- gruez 6y agoI looked into it several months ago and it looks like that extension is whitelisted to do it. If you try to repack the crx file and install it, the address bar doesn't get changed.
- marksomnian 6y agoThe extension ID is literally hard coded in the code of the scheme hiding code. https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:chrome/browser/ui/toolbar/chrome_location_bar_model_delegate.cc;l=46?q=jknemblkbdhdcpllfgbfekkdciegfboi&sq=&ss=chromium&originalUrl=https:%2F%2Fcs.chromium.org%2F https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:c...
- andrewprock 6y agoHow a proprietary extension can get preferential features illustrates that chromium is open source in name only.
- shadowgovt 6y agoHardly. If you look at firefox's source, you will find several extensions that are hard-coded for special handling. This is not new.
- andrewprock 6y agoTrue, but the distance between Firefox source and Firefox is config+compile. You cannot compile Chrome. I've heard that Chromium can be compiled and run, but I've never actually seen it, or hear of anyone using that professionally.
- shadowgovt 6y agoI'm not sure what your point is... You thought it was weird that an extension would get preferential treatment, and I pointed out that this is true for Firefox also.
- andrewprock 6y agoMy point is that you are correct. There are other factors at play which mitigate the preferential treatment, but it's definitely there in Firefox as well.
- onion2k 6y agoAsking a user to install "suspicious site reporter" in order to send a bug report is going to throw up a few problems.
- onion2k 6y agoIf you're relying on bug reports to find why a page is broken you're in for a bad time because 99% of the time the user isn't going to report anything. They're just going to think your page is broken and stop using it. Use a telemetry and error reporting service like Sentry or Rollbar. These services can strip sensitive data on the client before it gets logged.
- m90 6y agoNot every bug results in an error being thrown or any other signal that you could automatically detect. From my experience most of them are way more subtle.
- hrktb 6y agoWhile parent’s point is for devs, any kind of support situation falls into the same issues. Grand-parents/friends/org users not being sure to be on the right site after a redesign, not seeing amazon in the right language, etc. There’s countless of questions that can be solved faster by looking at the URL.
- user5994461 6y agoSentry only capture software exceptions. It doesn't tell you a page is rendering badly in the user's browser.
- onion2k 6y agoYou can send your own events to Sentry. It's not just for exceptions.
- mrweasel 6y agoGoogle does have an amazing access to data on how 80 - 90% of users are using the Internet, for many Google is the entry point for their Internet experience. Maybe their data is telling them that the URL bar is basically unused?
- butz 6y agoThat's probably because most advanced users turn off all telemetry when possible. And http://localhost http://localhost is probably ignored in statistics anyway.
- Marsymars 6y agoI mostly leave telemetry on in products I care about specifically so that my advanced use cases get logged.
- anewdirection 6y agoThats admirable, but you are a minority within a minority.
- shadowgovt 6y agoHonestly, if most "advanced" users turn off the features that Google uses to gather data to improve UX, it's strong signal UX isn't important enough to "advanced" users for Google to optimize for it.
- Jyaif 6y agoBut they don't have that signal...
- shadowgovt 6y agoMissing data leaves its own wake. Google has numbers to extrapolate how many turn off usage reporting. They lack automated signal in how the users use the tools.
- JBiserkov 6y ago>Probably we are at the crossroads where developers need separate, not dumbed-down version of browser. Yes, we are. Funny enough, Firefox has a 'Developer edition', but that's just the Beta build, with some features turned-on by default. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/
- wolco 6y agoDevelopers at least the experienced ones never left firefox. For the new developers who got hooked on chrome over the last 10/15 years time to move to a developer friendly browser. At this point ie becomes more useful.
- mantap 6y agoBlink is the most common browser engine. Firefox has some nice developer tools but if you don't test in blink throughout the day then you're just asking for problems.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoBlink will remain the most common if that's all devs continue to optimize for. Not a way to change anything for the better.
- shadowgovt 6y agoAnd it's what devs will continue to optimize for while it continues to be most common. The goal of most web developers is to make pages users can use, not get mired down in the never-ending browser wars.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoIt's the most common because devs optimize for it. That's a Catch 22 you can't break out of if you continue to optimize for it, an infinite loop.
- shadowgovt 6y agoYes. That is network effect. As the smaller vendor, it's incumbent upon Mozilla to break it. Expecting individual devs to do it collectively when it really isn't in their selfish interests is waiting for a unicorn to appear.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoFirefox's still an option.
- cancerSpreads 6y agoThe quality of Firefox on Windows as software is much to be desired. Due to slow loading, I'm considering whatever they call the Microsoft browser today.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoMicrosoft doesn't have a browser today, it's just a repackaged Chrome supporting the same Blink monopoly. I am honestly surprised Firefox on Windows is slow for you. I don't personally use Windows, but many on here say it works well there since v57.
- cancerSpreads 6y agoI have tried to fix this slow loading problem. Happening on 2 separate gaming laptops with SSDs. Maybe I don't know what to Google.
- Drdrdrq 6y agoTry to DuckDuckGo "why is Firefox slow on Google sites" - or just try to guess the answer...
- DaiPlusPlus 6y agoBlink isn’t a monopoly... yet.
- ethagnawl 6y agoIs this still true in Firefox >= 57?
- feanaro 6y agoNot in my experience.
- qwertox 6y agoI'm already annoyed by the hassle it has become to copy a substring of the URL into the clipboard, due to the schemes being hidden. Nothing has been won by hiding http(s):// as well as the www subdomain.
- hckr_news 6y agoIt is frustrating isn’t it
- taylus 6y agoThem acting like this is some kind of user experience thing is the most insulting part.
- shadowgovt 6y agoMost user experiences aren't the same as developer user experience.
- thu2111 6y agoBut it is. The URL bar is a disaster for end users. It's full of random junk that users can't read so they stop trying, which means they can then be tricked by phishing websites hosted on any domain at all. Research shows about 25% of users don't look at the URL bar at all even when typing in passwords, they navigate purely by sight, so it's impossible to stop them being phished. The human cost of the resulting hacking is significant. The fact that the software industry has routinely prioritised historical inertia, the needs of web developers, and all kinds of other trivialities over the security of billions of people is embarrassing. I'm glad to see the Chrome team finally get a grip on this and make the URL bar actually useful for people.
- franga2000 6y ago> The URL bar is a disaster for end users. [...] 25% of users don't look at the URL bar at all even when typing in passwords "Side view mirrors are a disaster for drivers. 25% of drivers don't even check them before making a turn." [I'll stop the metaphor here, as I think my point was clear] This change does exactly nothing to improve security. As for usability, it just puts one more layer of paint over the underlying "complexity" - and we've seen before how well that works (see basically every part of Windows 10 for examples).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]