4 ms·

I disagree with the decision strongly, but I'm a developer and probably a "power user". A casual user might not even know what a URL is. Do you know there's a

by 0xy 6y ago

I disagree with the decision strongly, but I'm a developer and probably a "power user". A casual user might not even know what a URL is. Do you know there's a staggering amount of users who type "google.com" into Google?

arexxbifs 6y ago
> A casual user might not even know what a URL is. And this will add a few extra hoops for them to jump through before they learn, so that they'll never have to leave the reassuring embrace of Google's ad trackers. How convenient. :)
- Vinnl 6y ago
  That's implying there's an "after they learn" - even without those hoops.
  - arexxbifs 6y ago
    Knowledge does not guarantee action, but there will be no action without knowledge.
    - Vinnl 6y ago
      It's not unimaginable to me that there will be no knowledge anyway, regardless of whether the URL is shown or not.
- criley2 6y ago
  I mean... not to be contrarian but does the average user need to know a URL? Do I need to know an address to drive my car somewhere? My knowledge that a place exists and I want to go there is sufficient to get me there, without having the physical address memorized. As a power-user I obviously navigate through URL far more than the average user, but I am not convinced that say a 50 year old nurse using my web software needs to ever touch a URL even a single time, or that it would be beneficial to her user experience to even know what it is.
  - sethammons 6y ago
    Maybe a slightly better analogy: with the URL, if you know your address, you can go straight there. With a car/driving, it would be like instant teleportation. Not knowing the URL means using Google search, and not knowing the street address means driving around and seeing a bunch of billboards. Removing the URL bar is like removing the ability to teleport so you can make sure people see the billboards.
nix23 6y ago
No sorry i just know of people that type google into bing.com ;)
ptx 6y ago
A large part of the reason for this confusion might be Google's long-standing efforts to blur the line between search and plain URL-based navigation, starting with integrating search into the location field in Chrome – Firefox and Safari[1] used to separate them, which makes the concepts clearer and avoids sending URLs and (local history) searches to the search provider unintentionally. [1] http://toastytech.com/guis/osx14safari2.png http://toastytech.com/guis/osx14safari2.png
- Gwypaas 6y ago
  I remember this being the magical thing together with less wasted vertical space that made me switch to Chrome back in the day, it was (and still is) so simple! Always had the search field taking up precious space in Firefox but never really using it because it was a different mental route, like this is smart but why am I not using it? I think it is down to having to consciously decide to search before starting to type instead of just start typing, if you couldn't remember the URL just misspell it and search and it works, a more specific page throw in another word and you get the correct page as a search result essentially every time.
  - ptx 6y ago
    Looking at that issue of consciously deciding whether to search from another angle, if I haven't decided yet, why would I want to inform Google of what I'm typing? Perhaps it's a private address of a private server with private information in the query string. In any case, if I do decide to search, the search field is just a ctrl+k away, so the additional convenience of combining the fields never seemed that great to me. (But for Google, of course, it's a very convenient property of this design that everything the user types happens to end up being sent to Google.)
krzyk 6y ago
Hiding the URL won't make people learn what it is. And what great thing can be accomplished when one changes it - this is how I learned a lot of things when WWW was starting. Are we promoting idiocracy now? If someone doesn't know what it is he/she should find out, or live with not knowing.

by 0xy 6y ago

arexxbifs 6y ago

> A casual user might not even know what a URL is. And this will add a few extra hoops for them to jump through before they learn, so that they'll never have to leave the reassuring embrace of Google's ad trackers. How convenient. :)

Vinnl 6y ago
That's implying there's an "after they learn" - even without those hoops.
- arexxbifs 6y ago
  Knowledge does not guarantee action, but there will be no action without knowledge.
  - Vinnl 6y ago
    It's not unimaginable to me that there will be no knowledge anyway, regardless of whether the URL is shown or not.
criley2 6y ago
I mean... not to be contrarian but does the average user need to know a URL? Do I need to know an address to drive my car somewhere? My knowledge that a place exists and I want to go there is sufficient to get me there, without having the physical address memorized. As a power-user I obviously navigate through URL far more than the average user, but I am not convinced that say a 50 year old nurse using my web software needs to ever touch a URL even a single time, or that it would be beneficial to her user experience to even know what it is.
- sethammons 6y ago
  Maybe a slightly better analogy: with the URL, if you know your address, you can go straight there. With a car/driving, it would be like instant teleportation. Not knowing the URL means using Google search, and not knowing the street address means driving around and seeing a bunch of billboards. Removing the URL bar is like removing the ability to teleport so you can make sure people see the billboards.

nix23 6y ago

No sorry i just know of people that type google into bing.com ;)

ptx 6y ago

A large part of the reason for this confusion might be Google's long-standing efforts to blur the line between search and plain URL-based navigation, starting with integrating search into the location field in Chrome – Firefox and Safari[1] used to separate them, which makes the concepts clearer and avoids sending URLs and (local history) searches to the search provider unintentionally. [1] http://toastytech.com/guis/osx14safari2.png http://toastytech.com/guis/osx14safari2.png

Gwypaas 6y ago
I remember this being the magical thing together with less wasted vertical space that made me switch to Chrome back in the day, it was (and still is) so simple! Always had the search field taking up precious space in Firefox but never really using it because it was a different mental route, like this is smart but why am I not using it? I think it is down to having to consciously decide to search before starting to type instead of just start typing, if you couldn't remember the URL just misspell it and search and it works, a more specific page throw in another word and you get the correct page as a search result essentially every time.
- ptx 6y ago
  Looking at that issue of consciously deciding whether to search from another angle, if I haven't decided yet, why would I want to inform Google of what I'm typing? Perhaps it's a private address of a private server with private information in the query string. In any case, if I do decide to search, the search field is just a ctrl+k away, so the additional convenience of combining the fields never seemed that great to me. (But for Google, of course, it's a very convenient property of this design that everything the user types happens to end up being sent to Google.)

krzyk 6y ago

Hiding the URL won't make people learn what it is. And what great thing can be accomplished when one changes it - this is how I learned a lot of things when WWW was starting. Are we promoting idiocracy now? If someone doesn't know what it is he/she should find out, or live with not knowing.