3 ms·

I think the end game will be that the domain part of a URL will become optional so that it is valid to enter just a TLD in the browser and the company that owns

I think the end game will be that the domain part of a URL will become optional so that it is valid to enter just a TLD in the browser and the company that owns that TLD can redirect. So http://google http://google would be a valid URL that redirects to http://www.google.com http://www.google.com (for example). Essentially TLDs will become the new domains and only companies will be able to afford to buy one, but they will do it for the prestige (like the equivalent of owning your .com today).

squiggleblaz 6y ago
More likely, the whole system will just collapse and so we will use a private organisation who provides a service linking approximate names to websites, something like a telephone directory but it doesn't require you to correctly spell things and get the right prefix. It will occasionally be a problem where you search for "Honest Company" and it takes you to honest.co.fraud, but if it does that too often I guess we will switch to a competitor. I guess the main solution to that problem is to have a list of different possible matches, and require the user to pick the right one.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  > we will use a private organisation who provides a service linking approximate names to websites You are describing Google. Lots of people already type in 'yahoo' or 'paypal' and then click the first link than type the URL.
  - navaati 6y ago
    Woooosh !
Jaruzel 6y ago
Whereas I don't disagree here, it does break how DNS is supposed to work. A client machine can 'belong' to a DNS namespace, e.g. mycorp.com. Once it does, the DNS resolver should append the namespace automatically onto any non qualified DNS query. So looking up 'server01' would automatically try to resolve 'server01.mycorp.com'. Therefore in a browser, entering 'https://google' https://google' in the address bar should result in a DNS resolution attempt of 'google.mycorp.com'. However, [almost] all browsers, now override that, and prepend 'www.' and append '.com' to any unqualified address BEFORE it hits DNS. If you drop the 'https://' https://' the browser assumes it's a search query and just sends it off to the default search engine. It's another example of browser providers riding roughshod over established standards under the guise of 'ease of use'.

squiggleblaz 6y ago

More likely, the whole system will just collapse and so we will use a private organisation who provides a service linking approximate names to websites, something like a telephone directory but it doesn't require you to correctly spell things and get the right prefix. It will occasionally be a problem where you search for "Honest Company" and it takes you to honest.co.fraud, but if it does that too often I guess we will switch to a competitor. I guess the main solution to that problem is to have a list of different possible matches, and require the user to pick the right one.

selfhoster11 6y ago
> we will use a private organisation who provides a service linking approximate names to websites You are describing Google. Lots of people already type in 'yahoo' or 'paypal' and then click the first link than type the URL.
- navaati 6y ago
  Woooosh !

Jaruzel 6y ago

Whereas I don't disagree here, it does break how DNS is supposed to work. A client machine can 'belong' to a DNS namespace, e.g. mycorp.com. Once it does, the DNS resolver should append the namespace automatically onto any non qualified DNS query. So looking up 'server01' would automatically try to resolve 'server01.mycorp.com'. Therefore in a browser, entering 'https://google' https://google' in the address bar should result in a DNS resolution attempt of 'google.mycorp.com'. However, [almost] all browsers, now override that, and prepend 'www.' and append '.com' to any unqualified address BEFORE it hits DNS. If you drop the 'https://' https://' the browser assumes it's a search query and just sends it off to the default search engine. It's another example of browser providers riding roughshod over established standards under the guise of 'ease of use'.