4 ms·

It's a very strange move indeed. maps.google.com implies an application lives there, far better than being on the root domain. It also means that when you star

by keyle 4y ago

It's a very strange move indeed. maps.google.com implies an application lives there, far better than being on the root domain. It also means that when you start typing maps.google, you'd get all your history searchable related to maps, although arguably that's useless. I can't think of a reason why this would be a good technical move for Google (ignoring the don't do evil thingie), other than simplifying... certificates? Less lines in the firewall config... I'm stretching here, help me understand.

luckylion 4y ago
Other things: slightly simpler external DNS surface, probably tiny speed improvements because users only need to have the IP of www.google.com, not one for maps, one for www, one for whateverelse. More possibility for connection re-use, as you'd only need to have a connection open for www.google.com, not one for each service. And security wise: ISPs can now only see that you're accessing something at google, but not which service exactly. If they also bring in accounts.google.com into the fold, that would make it harder to see whether you have an account or not.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  True. I’m sure being a beyondcorp company they can’t figure out how to add dns entries. Those google guys really should learn more about the internet and it’s technologies. I don’t buy the simplicity argument for a second. The infrastructure exists, has existed for many years, and is not particularly exotic in the world. The only thing that matters to a surveillance and advertising company is surveillance and advertising. You don’t need to overthink this one.
  - justusthane 4y ago
    That’s a rather simplistic take; a company that makes money by surveilling you as you use their products also must care about the quality of their products. If their products suck, fewer people will use them = fewer people to surveil = less money! So not all changes are necessarily directly in the service of surveillance. Also, I don’t think your reply to the above comment was entirely fair; they didn’t say anything about adding DNS records, and also mentioned several other potential benefits of not using subdomains.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      All changes are in the service of surveillance. If making the honey pot sweeter works then they’ll do it. If making it more pervasive and intrusive while not offending anyone away they will do it. They will do nothing that hurts the mission to mine and sell advertisements, and all actions will lead to that. I know you mentioned other things but they’re all sort of in the same bucket of “not that hard once done” and “google can surely do that without blinking an eye”. I would posit the move away from a subdomain to a root domain is hard and complex and benefits end users not one bit. Perhaps the end state is easier on the margins, but again, I doubt given it’s been that way for so long it’s effectively any easier for engineers or operators at google in any way what so ever. Well, other than those responsible for surveilling all the things.
- phillipseamore 4y ago
  As you mention there are plenty of performance reasons to run everything under a single hostname. There's also one especially vital for Maps, it loads a tonne of resources and maps are used in various other services at Google. Now that caches are being siloed down to the host level, having all the resources accessible in a same-origin cache will save bandwidth and increase performance for users.
csmpltn 4y ago
> "It's a very strange move indeed. maps.google.com implies an application lives there, far better than being on the root domain." How does "maps.google.com" imply an application "lives there" any more than "google.com/maps"? Technically speaking, "google.com/maps" is far superior to "maps.google.com" (check out the rest of the comments in this thread for examples: simpler DNS configuration, simpler certificate management, CORS, cookies, etc).
- ilyt 4y ago
  Technically speaking it goes around any security CORS and friends provide
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    Security is hard, money is easy. Simple choice!
  - csmpltn 4y ago
    > "Technically speaking it goes around any security CORS and friends provide" CORS wasn't designed to "offer any security" in this specific scenario anyway. By using "google.com/maps" they can simplify their systems (by not worrying caring about CORS).
ojr 4y ago
google.com/maps is simpler to type on a mobile phone and more consumer friendly, I’ve always used google.com/ pattern, way easier to leverage autocomplete, type a g to autocomplete google.com then if you are looking for flights type f and in 2-3 clicks you are on google.com/flights
- somat 4y ago
  Yeah, but flights.google.com or translate.google gets you there even faster. dns segments are shown backwards for a reason. it was done so that the most specific part shows up first when searching for something. I have to admit as a data structure snob. I vaguely wish it were the other way around, sigh, as much as I hate to admit it java classes got it right. I also have to admit it does not really matter that much.

by keyle 4y ago

luckylion 4y ago

Other things: slightly simpler external DNS surface, probably tiny speed improvements because users only need to have the IP of www.google.com, not one for maps, one for www, one for whateverelse. More possibility for connection re-use, as you'd only need to have a connection open for www.google.com, not one for each service. And security wise: ISPs can now only see that you're accessing something at google, but not which service exactly. If they also bring in accounts.google.com into the fold, that would make it harder to see whether you have an account or not.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
True. I’m sure being a beyondcorp company they can’t figure out how to add dns entries. Those google guys really should learn more about the internet and it’s technologies. I don’t buy the simplicity argument for a second. The infrastructure exists, has existed for many years, and is not particularly exotic in the world. The only thing that matters to a surveillance and advertising company is surveillance and advertising. You don’t need to overthink this one.
- justusthane 4y ago
  That’s a rather simplistic take; a company that makes money by surveilling you as you use their products also must care about the quality of their products. If their products suck, fewer people will use them = fewer people to surveil = less money! So not all changes are necessarily directly in the service of surveillance. Also, I don’t think your reply to the above comment was entirely fair; they didn’t say anything about adding DNS records, and also mentioned several other potential benefits of not using subdomains.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    All changes are in the service of surveillance. If making the honey pot sweeter works then they’ll do it. If making it more pervasive and intrusive while not offending anyone away they will do it. They will do nothing that hurts the mission to mine and sell advertisements, and all actions will lead to that. I know you mentioned other things but they’re all sort of in the same bucket of “not that hard once done” and “google can surely do that without blinking an eye”. I would posit the move away from a subdomain to a root domain is hard and complex and benefits end users not one bit. Perhaps the end state is easier on the margins, but again, I doubt given it’s been that way for so long it’s effectively any easier for engineers or operators at google in any way what so ever. Well, other than those responsible for surveilling all the things.
phillipseamore 4y ago
As you mention there are plenty of performance reasons to run everything under a single hostname. There's also one especially vital for Maps, it loads a tonne of resources and maps are used in various other services at Google. Now that caches are being siloed down to the host level, having all the resources accessible in a same-origin cache will save bandwidth and increase performance for users.

csmpltn 4y ago

> "It's a very strange move indeed. maps.google.com implies an application lives there, far better than being on the root domain." How does "maps.google.com" imply an application "lives there" any more than "google.com/maps"? Technically speaking, "google.com/maps" is far superior to "maps.google.com" (check out the rest of the comments in this thread for examples: simpler DNS configuration, simpler certificate management, CORS, cookies, etc).

ilyt 4y ago
Technically speaking it goes around any security CORS and friends provide
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Security is hard, money is easy. Simple choice!
- csmpltn 4y ago
  > "Technically speaking it goes around any security CORS and friends provide" CORS wasn't designed to "offer any security" in this specific scenario anyway. By using "google.com/maps" they can simplify their systems (by not worrying caring about CORS).

ojr 4y ago

google.com/maps is simpler to type on a mobile phone and more consumer friendly, I’ve always used google.com/ pattern, way easier to leverage autocomplete, type a g to autocomplete google.com then if you are looking for flights type f and in 2-3 clicks you are on google.com/flights

somat 4y ago
Yeah, but flights.google.com or translate.google gets you there even faster. dns segments are shown backwards for a reason. it was done so that the most specific part shows up first when searching for something. I have to admit as a data structure snob. I vaguely wish it were the other way around, sigh, as much as I hate to admit it java classes got it right. I also have to admit it does not really matter that much.