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I work at an Alphabet company, so at work I use Chrome. Lots of internal tools are really buggy on anything but Chrome, so I have little choice. There's lots of

I work at an Alphabet company, so at work I use Chrome. Lots of internal tools are really buggy on anything but Chrome, so I have little choice. There's lots of copy-paste of URLs, including fragments, and it's really jarring to have the text suddenly change right after a mouse-up. It's surprising and unpleasant. And of course the browser tries to modify the selection between mouse-up and copy to make sure I get the whole thing, so now the software is not doing what I told it to. It seems harmless to show the full URL and not bait-and-switch the text upon interaction. I don't see it as the browser's job to protect users from their incompetence.

themacguffinman 6y ago
Chrome already visually de-emphasizes the URL path, clearly they don't think it's enough. If you care at all about the health of the web, you should support browsers in protecting users from their own incompetence. Users don't blame themselves for phishing & fraud, when it runs rampant on a platform they simply switch and the end result is that native walled gardens that do protect users win over the web. This is exactly what happened with news on the mobile web; mobile news websites got so slow that Apple & Facebook started gaining a lot of ground with completely closed & proprietary news platforms (Apple News, Facebook Instant), until Google released AMP which both helped & pressured news orgs to get their shit together on the web.
- zbrozek 6y ago
  You started with protection and ended with performance, but I don't see where you connect them. Could you clarify? I see these kinds of features sort of like padding on football players. It enables (encourages?) carelessness. Maybe the jury is still out on the net outcome, but I'm so far away from web development and the overall ecosystem as to have no opinion.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    The common theme is that in both cases, the web was losing ground to closed, native platforms. If web browsers don't protect users, they stand to lose users to platforms that do protect users in much the same way that slow websites lost users to Apple News & Facebook Instant. Of course it encourages carelessness, that's what users want: they want to care less about the tech they use.They simply want the benefits of tech, not the maintenance or burden of care. It's why many prefer an iPhone that makes all their software choices for them. It's why many trust an email provider to sort & filter their email instead of doing it themselves.

themacguffinman 6y ago

Chrome already visually de-emphasizes the URL path, clearly they don't think it's enough. If you care at all about the health of the web, you should support browsers in protecting users from their own incompetence. Users don't blame themselves for phishing & fraud, when it runs rampant on a platform they simply switch and the end result is that native walled gardens that do protect users win over the web. This is exactly what happened with news on the mobile web; mobile news websites got so slow that Apple & Facebook started gaining a lot of ground with completely closed & proprietary news platforms (Apple News, Facebook Instant), until Google released AMP which both helped & pressured news orgs to get their shit together on the web.

zbrozek 6y ago
You started with protection and ended with performance, but I don't see where you connect them. Could you clarify? I see these kinds of features sort of like padding on football players. It enables (encourages?) carelessness. Maybe the jury is still out on the net outcome, but I'm so far away from web development and the overall ecosystem as to have no opinion.
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  The common theme is that in both cases, the web was losing ground to closed, native platforms. If web browsers don't protect users, they stand to lose users to platforms that do protect users in much the same way that slow websites lost users to Apple News & Facebook Instant. Of course it encourages carelessness, that's what users want: they want to care less about the tech they use.They simply want the benefits of tech, not the maintenance or burden of care. It's why many prefer an iPhone that makes all their software choices for them. It's why many trust an email provider to sort & filter their email instead of doing it themselves.