Hiding the URL
The idea of hiding the URL is ludicrous at best. Sure, you get to see it (briefly) while the page is loading, but on a decent broadband, that's all of 2 seconds, if not faster. Seeing the URL is an important anti-phishing check. Even on Google's own search results, the "URL" (the bit of text below the description) says one thing, but pulls up something completely different (common for phishing/scareware sites). These pages load in less than a second in some cases too. They're made to look like part of your OS (like a window or popup), and having the "webpage" go to pseudo-full-screen would just exacerbate the issue. Not to mention phishing sites that send you to "http://bankofamerica.corporateportal.tail.ru" or somesuch. By the time they get half across the URL, the page is loaded and the URL would go away, and that's for us Keen-Eyed that actually glance at the during loads. Then there are the bait-n-switch URLs which start loading a page then quickly shuffle you off to some odd URL (even legitimately). I've caught many-a-website doing this, primarily for "referral" credit or somesuch, but the "store" I thought I was browsing ends up dumping me into a no-name marketplace.
Leave the URL, even if it's as a status bar at the bottom of the screen. And leave it that way by default. People won't ever become security-aware if we keep abstracting stuff away from them as a default.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
