Official: Google Chrome 69 kills off the World Wide Web (in URLs)

Google Chrome has suddenly stopped displaying www. and m. in website addresses in its URL bar, confusing the heck out of some netizens. The move apparently cuts down on unneeded "trivial" characters that normies and techies alike shouldn't, according to the browser's developers, worry about in 2018. The more cynically minded …

[Mayday]

Dislike

There's more to the Internet than www. Sure it's a web browser, primarily used for www. Either way a URL is supposed to go in the URL bar. All of it. Not just some bits.

Worst of all, what parts may be hidden or obfuscated in the future because the world's biggest advertising company says so? And malware/dodgy sites doctoring the URL to appear a little more legitimate? Etc. etc.

[ecofeco]

Re: Dislike

Ha! I just posted sort of the same thing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dislike

Dear Google: please don't mess with DNS.

If you want to shorten the URL, how about hiding the http:// or https:// prefix - since Chrome already shows "Not Secure" and "Secure" as well?

[Named coward]

Re: Dislike

The http/https is also gone from the bar. Now you just get a padlock icon

[keith_w]

Re: Dislike

Although I don't know how Google Chrome would use, as opposed to display, a website that started "https://www." there are sites that are not available if you do not use that prefix. Specifically, I was working at a location doing deployments where the site id for RSA tokens was https://www.<token location>.<company name>.com. Their DNS would not recognize the request if you did not include the "https://www.". I am sure that that company will truly appreciate it when Google Chrome dumps the prefix for them.

[Ragarath]

Re: Dislike

@keith_w

Keith, the www is still there in the DNS lookup (or it would really break the system) all the browser is doing is hiding that to the user.

Hiding the actual domain is bad. I have different stuff on domain.com and www.domain.com do not make my users think they are the same, they are different domains. Might just have to ban Chrome!

I also already have a hard time getting people to just use the address bar rather than a Google search to get to the site, they're even typing the www.SITENNAME.com into Google search.

Stop trying to "Make it Easier" it is already easy, people are just lazy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dislike

> Hiding the actual domain is bad. I have different stuff on domain.com and www.domain.com do not make my users think they are the same, they are different domains. Might just have to ban Chrome!

Serve your sites also on www.www.domain.com and redirect all Chrome to it, ideally with a short admonition to the user to beware of stuff designed by amateurs.

[Bitbeisser]

Re: Dislike

"Stop trying to "Make it Easier" it is already easy, people are just lazy."

You can thank M$ for making people lazy, Internet Exploder was the first web browser that would add a "www." in front when you entered just "domain.com". Or add a ".com" when you just typed "domain".

And Apple is/wasn't far behind, as Safari quickly followed suite...

[JohnFen]

Re: Dislike

"how about hiding the http:// or https:// prefix "

Hiding the protocol identifier is just as bad, though, particularly since there are more choices than just HTTP and HTTPS.

[rg287]

Re: Dislike

Either way a URL is supposed to go in the URL bar. All of it. Not just some bits.

Unfortunately, Chrome doesn't have a URL bar. It has an "Omnibox" which does bloody stupid things like performing a Search when you type "192.168.1.1" into it.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Dislike

It has an "Omnibox" which does bloody stupid things like performing a Search when you type "192.168.1.1" into it.

So that's what it is; what has been annoying the fuck out of me when failing to side-load my Android phone apps by downloading from an IP-addressed web page on my LAN.

Bunch of anky anking ankers.

[AlexGreyhead]

Re: Dislike

Pop a trailing slash on anything you want Chrome to treat as a URL, e.g.:

192.168.1.1/ will load http://192.168.1.1/

monkey.local/ will load http://monkey.local/

Etc etc.

[LeahroyNake]

Re: Dislike

"Omnibox" which does bloody stupid things like performing a Search when you type "192.168.1.1" into it.

I hope you are typing https://192.168.1.1:'somerandomport'. In an actual address bar rather than a search b8tch bar.

[Daniel von Asmuth]

Re: Dislike

URLs could be shortened to just the IP address, port number and inode number. But then, how much do a few extra bytes cost in UK currency?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nae trivial parts

A site's domain is under control of the administrator. It is the administrator who decides what is and what is not trivial.

If an administrator decides that the www in http://www.example.com is superflous then they will serve the site on http://example.com (yes, this admin has also decided against compulsory TLS use).

The browser's job is to show where the user is at, not trying to pull an "I know better" in the name of God knows what.

[Anonymous Coward]

CEO Mr Pichai it's time to step down!!

This clueless Sundar Pichai should step down, Google got so much worse during his CEO stint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: CEO Mr Pichai it's time to step down!!

Is it just coincidence that Google CEO Pichai and M$ CEO Nadella are both indian-born!? What a catastrophic management style both have - people started to hate Google and M$ because of their crazy management decisions to spy on users and sell the data to third parties. Let's kick them out of their job, before the do more harm to the western society.

[beep54]

Full URL

Isn't this one way to check to see if you are at a legitimate site? How can shortening the URL help?

[Giovani Tapini]

Re: Full URL

Fully agree. Its all very well assuming the whole planet is filled with people that understand what is a domain, subdomain, top level domain etc. but it really isn't.

Most people, even if they do try to check, will simply look to see if it seems to match. In this case what you can see will ALWAYS be different to what you think you targeted.

If the URL offends you so much Google, just make it disappear after a while...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

No one even checks if it matches. Google search in URL bar is atrocious from a security standpoint. Already had the "why can't we login to site XYZ" when in fact they had mistyped, Google had searched, they clicked "first/sponsored" result. Thankfully they were sent to a hotel site or review forums instead of the specific booking company/location. However they still were not sent to the correct place. (IIRC a hyphen or a .org/.com got swapped somewhere when typing)

[teknopaul]

Re: Full URL

Re"No one even checks if it matches."

I very rarely dont check. I start typing into ff address bar. check that the url is found from history and then select. I rarely write full urls. I dont let fake urls into my history and i clean my history if it happens.

I dont use chrome because they send off what ever you type before you get a chance to correct a typo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

> I very rarely dont check.

That's one data point. Now I suggest you look around you at coworkers, family, friends, passengers on public transport, etc., and make a note of how many people are actually checking that they are on the right site (or even aware of what a URL actually is).

Fishing exists for a reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

> No one even checks if it matches. Google search in URL bar is atrocious from a security standpoint.

Ben is absolutely correct on both counts. Why the audience please have the courtesy of explaining the downvotes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

> Why the audience...

Would the audience...

Apologies for typing on autopilot.

[dnicholas]

Re: Full URL

>> If the URL offends you so much Google, just make it disappear after a while...

Like Chrome on Android has been doing forever

[katrinab]

Re: Full URL

People might not realise that

www.nwolb.com.default.aspx.reffererident.1231e898f.date/20180907 is a dodgy site, but if it displayed

1231e898f.date/20180907

then they might

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

People might not realise but www.domain.com and domain.com are two completely different fucking addresses. I though google hired people who had more than 1 brain cell.

[Anonymous Coward]

Give feedback

> I though google hired people who had more than 1 brain cell.

Those of you who a) use Chrome and b) have so-called social media accounts (Twitter and the like) may want to get in touch with, e.g., Jake Archibald and the other people from Chrome's development and UX teams (largely, their names and online identities are public) and tell them that you think this is a terrible idea and why. Respectfully and politely, need I remind you?

Personally, I cannot see what useful purpose such a change could possibly have. I do not use Chrome, but I can already see the not-quite-grown-ups at FF rushing to copy Google's latest ill-considered idea.

[badger31]

Re: Full URL

Exactly. Some people seeing domain.com in the address bar might not realise that they are looking at www.domain.com, then type domain.com next time they want that site, ending up somewhere else. Unfortunately--re the fix--for anyone who will be likely to do that it won't matter. Messing with the URL is dumb and dangerous. Are we running short on screen space for URLs now?

[GeekyDee]

Re: Full URL

Are we running short on screen space for URLs now?

Silly Badger, that space will soon be used for micro-ads!

[pogul]

Re: Full URL

> People might not realise but www.domain.com and domain.com are two completely different fucking addresses. I though google hired people who had more than 1 brain cell.

Jesus, next you'll be suggesting that "Flat 1, 16 ExampleRoad" is different from "Flat 2, 16 Example Road" -- people don't want to be bothered with this sort of superfluous detail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

So they could grey the subdomain and keep the domain part black

[Ragarath]

Re: Full URL

But that's not even what they are talking about.

That site would still show nwolb.com.default.aspx.reffererident.1231e898f.date just the www would be missing.

They are targeting one sub domain here. The problem is where do you stop? They don't like INSERT YOUR DOMAIN HERE tomorrow. Your out of luck, this is worse than the old IE6 shenanigans. Google is too big and needs policing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Full URL

This is no different than those dickheads at M$ deciding their users dont need to see the file extensions, spawning all kinds of trickery, for example providing a file called evil.txt.exe and including a text file icon into the exe to convince users further that it is a text file

There is a unspecified prize for anyone who can figure out the thinking behind this.

Anybody?

[JLV]

For some reason this reminds me of Windows Explorer's "clever" choice not to trouble us with those, pesky and unnecessary, file extensions.

Which hasn't made life that much easier and has had a number of wholly-expected security effects.

Hopefully, like in Windows, you can tweak Chrome's settings to disable this behavior.

[alain williams]

Leads to more lack of understanding

Hopefully, like in Windows, you can tweak Chrome's settings to disable this behavior.

Very few people will know how to (or care/bother) to do so; these will be the technically literate. The others will believe what they see and their general level of understanding of how the Internet works drop even more.

Simplification is one thing, but not this.

[LeahroyNake]

Re: Leads to more lack of understanding

If you don't know how to display the 'extension for known file types' click the start button or whatever Win 10 calls it... the thing in the bottom left corner normally ( unless you have accidentally dragged the bar to a different part of the screen) type.. with the keyboard 'Folder' then click folder settings or folder options... If you can't find the option from there please send me your PC/ laptop and I will honestly send it back if you include your cc details mothers maiden name and your favourite colour. Thanks MS support.

[K.o.R]

Re: Leads to more lack of understanding

Displaying extensions (and hidden files) is on the View tab of Explorer's ribbon as well.

[MJI]

I detest that

Three files, same name, different little logos, two which are wrong.

I do NEED to know the extensions, which is the data, the index and the memo.

[Lusty]

Re: I detest that

Could be worse, on Linux you could have a .txt or .jpg extension which the OS will happily execute as a script based on permissions. Extensions aren't a good security feature on any OS, but if you want to show them it's blindingly easy in Windows Explorer.

[Daniel von Asmuth]

Re: I detest that

There is no such thing as an extension in Linux or Unix, only filename suffixes If you tell the OS to execute some file, it will check your permissions and then its magic number and if none matches, pass it to a shell to run as as script. File names with '/' or '\0' characters in them are asking for trouble.

[jake]

Re: I detest that

The difference, Lusty, is that on Linux the extension is not meaningful. Changing the name of the file doesn't affect how the OS sees it. Meaningful file extensions should have died with CPM.

[Lusty]

Re: I detest that

@jake that's horseshit every Linux distro I've used has had a config to recognise file extensions and launch apps accordingly, and my first Linux installed from floppy disk. The difference is that Linux doesn't use a file extension to determine executability. It does use extensions to determine how to use files though, as do all modern operating systems. Double click an image file with html as an extension and see what happens next. Does your OS launch GIMP or Chrome?

[JohnFen]

Re: I detest that

"It does use extensions to determine how to use files though, as do all modern operating systems"

No, it doesn't.

"Double click an image file with html as an extension and see what happens next. Does your OS launch GIMP or Chrome?"

You're talking about the desktop environment here, not Linux. Several DEs started paying attention to the extension in an effort to be friendlier to Windows users, but you can certainly use other DEs that don't exhibit this behavior.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I detest that

> You're talking about the desktop environment here, not Linux.

He's not even talking about the desktop environment. He might be talking, as far as I can make any sense out of his twaddle, about a desktop environment--and a very broken one at that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I detest that

> @jake that's horseshit

Lusty, it is enough having to tolerate your ignorance without you doing the arrogant twat thing, so please wind your fucking neck in. There are people in here who actually know what they're talking about and you are not one of them.

With that said, it is helpful to recall that a topical Linux environment consists of a number of superimposed, and sometimes complementary, layers. In the case at hand, the kernel (Linux), the installed utilities and configuration (the distro), the desktop environment and the individual applications (such as file managers) are all involved in determining what is going to happen when you interact with a file. Typically, a combination of file permissions, attributes, file contents and possibly file extension will be considered when making that decision.

In general, however, if file extensions are used at all (and that usually only occurs at the higher layers), they will be used merely to disambiguate between similar types.

E.g., opening file.csv in a spreadsheet application and file.txt in a text editor, even though both are plain text files. Conversely, saving a PNG file as file.txt will still result in the file being recognised as an image and being opened in the correct application.

The extensions, as others have already told you, are there primarily out of habit and as a matter of convention. At the OS level they do not have any meaning, they way they do in DOS and Windows.

Source: Linux developer here.

[Lusty]

Re: I detest that

"At the OS level they do not have any meaning, they way they do in DOS and Windows."

DOS doesn't use extensions either, it works identically to Linux in this in that you'd need to launch a program to use a file, and on Windows this works the same way as Linux - it'll joyfully launch the program and try to open the file then fail if it's incapable. I'm not sure what you all think is so baked into Windows around file extensions, but there's nothing there other than a list of extensions and default programs just like in Linux DEs. These are there just for convenience when you double click a file. The only exception to this is that DOS and Windows will only try to execute files with a few extensions such as EXE and BAT while Linux will run anything that has the executable bit set.

Also, no need to get personal and start name calling. You may be a Linux developer, but that's no excuse to act like you're Linus!

[Danny 2]

Re: I detest that

"Also, no need to get personal and start name calling."

We are a flock of loving lambs here until the first drop of blood and then we become a frenzy of sharks.

[JohnFen]

Re: I detest that

"DOS doesn't use extensions either, it works identically to Linux in this"

Not true -- extensions are meaningful for DOS. If you rename a .exe or .com to a different extension then try to execute that program, it will fail because it doesn't have the magic extension.

[jake]

Re: I detest that

"Double click an image file with html as an extension and see what happens next. Does your OS launch GIMP or Chrome?"

I almost never double-click on anything, but just to please you ... Neither, actually. It opens in my favorite lite-weight image viewer. I only open images in GIMP when I'm in need of an image editor. But thanks for playing. (No Chrome here, I don't intentionally run any of the gookids b0rkenware, but that's not really germane to this conversation).

Suggestion: man magic

Suggestion 2: man file

Then ask yourself "Why does Windows execute fonts instead of reading them and displaying them like any sane operating system?"

[pogul]

Re: I detest that

> will happily execute as a script based on permissions

Yes, exactly - it has to be GRANTED PERMISSION to execute, rather than being able to execute based on whatever name someone has decided to give it. You know, the clue is in the word "permissions" - metadata hat describes security related information. A description, title, name or whatever is the wrong place to put this.

[Pangasinan Philippines]

It's become a search engine box?

So the browser URL box effectively becomes a search box which Google will search and throw up the obvious answer.

[Elmer Phud]

Re: It's become a search engine box?

Well, yeah.

Isn't that how things usually work with Google 'anything'?

That so many out there refer to the browser as 'Google' is not a bit of a clue?

[keith_w]

Re: It's become a search engine box?

Bing does that too.

[LeahroyNake]

Re: It's become a search engine box?

I would probably duck out of if you can.

[Griffo]

Great

So after years and years of teaching users to check the full URL.. Google decide to start obfuscating it so they can turn it into another search bar with zero thought about the repercussions. Guess it's back to Firefox then.

[Mage]

Re: Guess it's back to Firefox then

Firefox / Mozilla have lost the plot.

I changed to Waterfox when Firefox 52ESR expired in August.

[quxinot]

No worries!

So long as I have the ability to turn it BACK ON.

Sorry, Chrome's lack of customization is one of the major reasons that I can't stand using it. Yes, privacy, tracking, etc.... but trying to monetize my information by selling ads that I'll never see (blocked at the network level via PiHole, blocked again with Ublock, and killed violently if they get past that!) is one thing, but making decisions for me is entirely another!

[vtcodger]

Re: No worries!

Surely, you are under the misapprehension that you are capable of making your own decisions without help from Google?

[stuartnz]

Thanks for including in the article the flag to change, El Reg. It made correcting this stupid change very easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use Chrome

If I wanted Stasiware on my PC I'd run it built into the O/S.

[Rich 11]

Re: Don't use Chrome

If I wanted Stasiware on your PC I'd build it into the hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not take it a step further..

and obfuscate the domain as well?

Turn all those pesky ".info, .link,.ru. .cn, .xyz" into .com or maybe .gov?

Or, just make the whole address bar a Google url shortened link with: "goo.gl/" or just get rid of the address bar altogether to make more room on the browser for hardcoded links and buttons for Facebook.

And while they're at it, they can remove the "chrome://flags" function with a streaming video advert to the highest bidder.

Seriously, who at Google thought this was even a remotely good idea?

[Mark 85]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

Seriously, who at Google thought this was even a remotely good idea?

Marketing probably.

[Giovani Tapini]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

I give you the Gruntmaster 6000....

[IanTP]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

Software upgradeable to the 9000?

[JLV]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

I see it as part of a broader trend from some of the tech providers to make us more reliant on their technology by abstracting address information away and setting themselves up as the needed gatekeepers.

- iPhones will display actual phone numbers as little as possible, making their Contacts your crutch. I was really happy to get those back on my (late, regretted) BB10 phone. Gmail requires a few (simple) steps before it shows you the actual email addresses (and no it's not like the screen space needed optimizing).

- Windows now makes it difficult to see a directory's path in Explorer, unless you click on the address bar to show it. Mac's Finder has always more or less privileged that behavior. Windows is now extending that to programs as well, which are more easily searched for than pinned.

Letting alone the Cortanas, Siris and sundry other AI "assistants".

- Chrome is now doing that with the URLs.

If, visually, you can't see where things are, then it makes average Jane more leery, and less capable, of leaving their existing phone/browser/desktop provider and experimenting with alternatives.

In some ways, this is beneficial, by making a computer somewhat less complicated to use. But it's not just done for our best interest.

So, 'Marketing', may not be far off or whichever department retains behavioral experts on user retention/lock-in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

"iPhones will display actual phone numbers as little as possible, making their Contacts your crutch"

That's not as annoying as when you receive an E-mail forwarded from an Outlook user. The E-mail headers just look like this:

From: Alice Smith

To: Bob Jones; Charlie Foo; ... etc

[Dan 55]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

Seriously, who at Google thought this was even a remotely good idea?

They're mindlessly following Safari.

At least on Safari desktop you can turn it off.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

Seriously, who at Google thought this was even a remotely good idea?

Well, they've dropped "Don't be evil" as a motto, so someone came up with the idea of borrowing Microsoft's old one "Embrace, extend, extinguish".

[jake]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

"they've dropped "Don't be evil" as a motto"

Is that official? How did I miss it? Got a cite? I would love it to be true!

[Dan 55]

Re: Why not take it a step further..

There you go:

New Google Parent Company Drops 'Don't Be Evil' Motto

And it's not The Onion.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hello? Help Desk?"

"My Internet portal web thingy is broken....."

[Rich 11]

Re: "Hello? Help Desk?"

"Is the homepage down? I can't get to the BBC."

[Giovani Tapini]

This is not a good day

The trivial subdomain can create very different behaviour from the site. Sometimes it's a way of localisation, or device optimisation.

And what about developers, or security checks.

Overall this idea seems to defeat the whole point of the URL concept itself.

[fredfs]

If www doesn't matter,

then why does google.com redirect to www.google.com?

Why do google.com and www.google.com resolve to different addresses for both IPv4 and IPv6?

[jake]

Re: If www doesn't matter,

Why? Because Marketing has no clue about engineering, that's why.

Remember, kiddies, Alphabet isn't a technology company, it is a marketing company. And you are the goods up for sale.

[vtcodger]

Re: If www doesn't matter,

"then why does google.com redirect to www.google.com?"

Artificial Stupidity?

[Someone Else]

Re: If www doesn't matter,

More like Institutional Stupidity, a well known by-product of American Business practice; It many cases, completely indistinguishable from Natural Stupidity

[Chris Hills]

And yet...

Still no support for dynamic discovery of web servers which would make sense by putting in the top level domain, and has the added benefit of fall back servers and non standard ports. For example example.com -> NAPTR E2U+https _https._srv.example.com -> [2001:22:33:44::385]:5443, 12.34.56.78:8443

[Mark 110]

Reg

Whats the amp thing all about? I'm puzzled. My URL shows as:

https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2018/09/07/google_kills_www/

I can't see any google amp thingy . .

[caffeine addict]

Re: Reg

You'll (probably) only see amp if you are on a mobile and google search "the register google" (or whatever). Rather than sending you to the actual article it will either send you to a version they're hosting, or one that the news provider has created that it promises is small and mobile friendly. Which, as far as I can tell, normally just means removing the comments section.

[Alan_Peery]

Re: Reg -- AMP technology

No, AMP is much more than removing the comments section. Here are two posts I wrote up a few months ago:

https://plus.google.com/+AlanPeery/posts/7wkkmnR8as7

https://plus.google.com/+AlanPeery/posts/ihXMThBatYa

[caffeine addict]

Re: Reg -- AMP technology

Okay. I didn't mean that's all it does. I meant that's the main reason I normally realise I'm on an amp version. As in it doesn't seem to create (visually) anything that an averagely competent web developer couldn't have done without Google's input.

[teknopaul]

Re: Reg

El Reg without comments? I shudder at the thought.

[Teiwaz]

Re: Reg without comments

It'd be a dull and dry and read like a whitepaper.

[dubious]

Re: Reg

It's an irrellevant annoyance that Google insists on using in [whatever Google Now Cards Are Called This Week] as far as I can tell.

Amp pages are so slow to load on my mobile that I can normally edit the amp out of the URL before the page has loaded and get to the proper site very quicky. And which inevitably works just fine anyway. And includes all the content as the site designer intended. (not always a good thing.)

Used to infuriate me but then some kind soul made https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/amp2html/ and I can carry on blissfully unaware of amp for a bit longer.

Come on elReg, do the right thing and dump amp instead of just bitching about it.

[ecofeco]

The layers keep piling up

More and more layers of obfuscation keep getting added to the Internet, further distancing most people from having any clue how it actually works.

[Lee D]

Re: The layers keep piling up

Please describe how that's any different from the state-of-the-art, quantum-effect-reliant, billions-of-transistors electrical-number-cruncher in front of them when they are just "clicking on the box" anyway?

1) You can't expect people to understand how everything they use works, beyond a primitive knowledge (like my knowledge of the internal combustion engine... I can draw you all kinds of diagrams, I wouldn't have a clue how to go about making one actually work though)... and that's *at best*.

2) Most people, even if they could, don't care about how the machine works.

3) The DNS / IP system is nothing but a pretty layer over ugly technicality anyway. It literally exists so people can type in things like google.com and have stuff happen.

4) Nobody has really cared about the www. part for years, possibly decades... exactly the reason some sites don't serve the base domain only the www subdomain, or vice-versa. Don't even get me started on emails going to [e-mail]

5) SSL CA's have always included one where you request the other. It's literally that common.

5) Unless you have a really good reason, I can't see why the base domain or the www. should do anything different to each other. When someone accesses port 80/443 of your IP, surely you want to send them to your website, no? I can understand not advertising, say, server1, server2 etc. subdomains, that are used internally to serve the content, but what are you expecting someone who just types in yourdomain.com or www.yourdomain.com to do differently?

6) The pool.ntp.org example is a classic "techy" solution - I know, because I run a bunch of servers for them. And typing in pool.ntp.org will send you to a random-guys web port of a random time server. I'm pretty sure that's not a very bright idea at all and they should have used an entirely differently sub/domain. For example, pool.ntp.org and www.pool.ntp.org should go to the website. But time.pool.ntp.org gives you a time server. No different to how mail.domain.com (or equivalent) should be your mail server, or smtp. or time. etc. - not just using the raw domain for that (because then it's tricky to separate one service from the other when you want to migrate one to an entirely different IP and you end up hard-coding IPs into things like SPF records rather than use mail.domain.com and then give that an A record to point to a different IP)

You can't cover up decades of convention, tradition and bad design *now*, as an excuse for a browser doing what some browsers have been doing for years. Especially not when apart from real-oddballs like NTP pool (who really should have done it better) hardly anyone could ever be affected. Now, if the edit didn't give you the full URL when you went to copy/paste but the shortened version instead... yeah, then I'd have serious issues with it.

[Elmer Phud]

Re: The layers keep piling up

Most folks would be hard pressed to change a fuel injector these days --yet they drive billions of miles without it being the cause of a trip to the shrink.

I know how my washing machine and dishwasher work -- but I'd not be too bothered if I didn't

[jake]

Re: The layers keep piling up

The trip to the shrink is because it costs them over a grand (plus lost time/vacation) when the injector fails and they don't know how to diagnose it and put in the replacement. Discovering bad injectors is actually fairly simple ...

[MJI]

Re: The layers keep piling up

>>Most folks would be hard pressed to change a fuel injector

Cam cover off

Disconnect injector loom

Unbolt rocker shaft

Unbolt injector retainer

Lever out with suitable Allen key

Make sure washer is out

Clean injector hole in head

Fit new washer and O ring

Refit injector

Refit clamp bolt

Refit rocker shaft

Adjust all injector rockers, turn engine so injector fully depressed, bottom out adjuster then back off AFAIR 1 turn, repeat for all injectors.

Refit loom

Refit cam cover

I own a car it is my duty to know how it works.

[SilverCommentard]

Re: The layers keep piling up

Throw away pile of left-over washers

[DwarfPants]

Re: The layers keep piling up

Get a person with a computer gismo to tell the ECU it has a new injector and that it should be friends with it, so it can stop complaining like the world is about to end.

[MJI]

Re: The layers keep piling up

And of course I own one

[vtcodger]

Re: The layers keep piling up

"Unbolt rocker shaft ... Refit rocker shaft ..."

At the risk of seeming petty, that sounds like Central (Single Port) Fuel Injection where a single fuel injector replaces the carburetor. I'm told that nowadays most cars use multiport injectors -- one for each cylinder. On my last three cars, the fuel injectors are mounted on a fuel rail running down the engine above the intake manifold and are activated electronically. No need to remove the valve(rocker) cover to change them, They are as accessible as they are going to get from the top of the engine. They look to be easily be replaced by any abnormally flexible individual with small hands and three or more functioning arms. Caveat. I haven't had to mess with a fuel delivery system since my 1969 Mazda carburetor automatic choke died of old age about three decades ago. I'll be overjoyed if it stays that way.

[nijam]

Re: The layers keep piling up

Maybe changing an injector was that simple 20 years ago, not so much these days.

> I own a car it is my duty to know how it works.

I doubt many people have the time or mental capacity to apply that principle to everything they own. Knowing how something works is - very obviously - not the same as being able to repair it; how far down the rabbit hole do you think people should be expected to go, I wonder?

[MrBanana]

Re: The layers keep piling up

"Knowing how something works is - very obviously - not the same as being able to repair it"

But it certainly helps to know what a job involves when you have to get someone else to do it. I can do many repair jobs on a car but some are out of reach because of specialist tools or lack of manuals. But I can make a much more informed decision, when choosing someone to do the job for me, if I know how it all works in the first place.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: The layers keep piling up

"I own a car it is my duty to know how it works."

We all have brains, but no-one knows how they work.

[jake]

Re: The layers keep piling up

We don't have a choice in the brains department, Ken.

[jake]

Re: The layers keep piling up

MJI, virtually all the injectors I've ever changed involve:

1) depressurize the fuel system.

2) disconnect the wire to the offending injector.

3) remove the fuel line/rail to the injector

4) undo the fastener(s) and remove the injector.

5) make sure the old O ring was removed with the old injector

Assembly is the reverse, with a new O ring and injector. The entire operation takes no more than 10 minutes, including cleaning the crud from around the injector BEFORE removing it from the engine. (Note: Don't use Brake Cleaner or Carb Cleaner, they melt plastic. I use shop air at about 90PSI; on the road I've been known to over-inflate a spare tire and attach an air hose to that.)

[Christian Berger]

Re: The layers keep piling up

Some people don't understand that if you just hide complexity it doesn't get away, and that complexity always incurrs technical debt which you'll have to pay eventually.

[Velv]

Re: The layers keep piling up

@ecofeco

To be fair, I doubt most people ever had a clue how it works, probably not even the slightest idea

[vtcodger]

Re: The layers keep piling up

"the Internet, ... it actually works."

It works? Who knew? Don't worry, A bit of Javascript will fix THAT.

[Arkyn]

AMP

@Mark110

AMP is Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages. On Android and iOS, some search results return an AMP page which is hosted by Google and has slow JavaScript disabled.

[Christian Berger]

Re: AMP

"AMP page which is hosted by Google and has slow JavaScript disabled."

Yes and has lots of JavaScript added by Google which slows down page loads compared to pages without JavaScript.

[vtcodger]

Re: AMP

"and has slow JavaScript disabled."

There's such a thing as fast Javascript? Where can I download it?

[steelpillow]

All together now

"URL-y one morning, just as the sun was ri-ising

I heard a maiden singing In the Google below.

Chorus: Oh, don't deceive me, Oh, never leave me,

How could you use my poor data so?"

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: All together now

Was it just me that heard that in the voice of Rambling Syd Rumpo then? Oh, ok then.

[Displacement Activity]

WTF?

And what if you have set up DNS to route *only* 'www.foo.com', or *only* 'foo.com', to your server?? This isn't particularly unusual - my local hardware shop is 'www.woc.com'. 'woc.com' isn't routed and doesn't work. So, go there with Chrome, and you think you're on 'woc.com', which doesn't exist. Or does Google want to run DNS as well?

Those tossers have already achieved the impossible, which is to make me start using MS's excuse for a search engine. Chrome is next on the delete list.

[Dan 55]

Re: WTF?

Try Duck Duck Go, the results are quite good.

There's also Start Page but I switch from that to DDG because the results weren't that good.

[DrXym]

The url is the enemy

All browsers are conflating the address bar and search into the one thing. The reason has less to do with usability and more to do with greed.

If the user types an unambiguous url then Google, Microsoft et al don't get an opportunity to deliver ads. So they'd rather users type a vague, ambiguous search term and then profit from ad keywords and ad impressions that appear in the results.

Thus the url is the enemy. Hiding the url or lopping bits off it is just an attempt to diminish its importance over time and increase the reliance on the search engine.

[Crypto Monad]

Good news for the owner of www.com!

$ whois www.com

Domain Name: WWW.COM

Registry Domain ID: 4308955_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.uniregistrar.com

Registrar URL: http://www.uniregistrar.com

Updated Date: 2014-09-23T18:24:31Z

Creation Date: 1998-11-02T05:00:00Z

Registry Expiry Date: 2024-09-20T04:16:04Z

Registrar: Uniregistrar Corp

Now they can create subdomain "paypal.www.com", add a LetsEncrypt certificate, and have it display as "paypal.com" with the green Secure flag.

[Ross 12]

Re: Good news for the owner of www.com!

'paypal.www.com' would just show as 'www.com' - I very much doubt they're just doing a string replace for 'www'.

[jake]

Re: Good news for the owner of www.com!

RTFA for content, Ross 12. Specifically paragraph 4.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good news for the owner of www.com!

"Stripping something out"" doesn't just mean they're doing a global search/replace...

Surely it's far more likely they're doing a regex replace, searching for:

(http[s]{0,1}://)www\.(.*) and replacing with \1\2, or

(http[s]{0,1}://)m\.(.*) and replacing with \1\2

If they are doing a straight search/replace, they're fucking mental...

[David Lawton]

Safari on Mac and iOS has been doing this for a few years now. I prefer how Safari use to be and have separate URL and search boxes on the toolbar. I like to be able to glance and know where i am, yeah i'm technical so that info i want, but the normal people with inquisitive minds cannot ask questions about things they cannot see!

When we hire new tech's the amount who cannot do basic under the hood things with Windows is scary. I'm convinced its because i was brought up with DOS, Windows 3.1, NT4, Windows 95 where there were very few wizards and you had to learn how things worked and get dirty. Younger people have been brought up with Wizards and auto things masking everything so they have never been exposed to the inner workings or because its all hidden away never had the chance to play as much.

Its bad enough already with URLs, expose users to them even less? This will hurt in 10 years time....

[RGE_Master]

Google,

You've done a lot of silly things, but this is by far the dumbest thing you've ever done, from a security perspective, this is a massive issue, from a user experience perspective, this is a massive issue. Not a single person I've spoken to about this thinks it's a good idea. You take it upon yourself to "Improve" our experience of your RAM hogging, buggy web browser and you actually managed to make it even worse. You stopped supporting Java and now use your own crappy embedded one and now this.

Sort out your memory issues before you try to bring in "Features"

If I had an option of removing this crap from every machine in the office I would. Chrome was meant to be the chosen one.

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

Is there a 'www' TLD and is the 'www' domain available? Just wondering if I could register it and set up a website at www.www.www and have Chrome show users a completely nameless website?

[Teiwaz]

Just one dialog.

Lets face it, Google would prefer no user specific user control and people just typed a term into a single box and accept whatever result they thought you meant and benefits them the most.

No fuss, no bother, less confusion (and thought) and any idiot and his wallet could use it and Google could benefit.

Typing an address in and going straight there bypasses the search page and those sponsored links don't get seen.

Buy more, Buy more now. Buy more, and be happy - THX1138

[DropBear]

Re: Just one dialog.

Considering how difficult it would be for them to cat-herd techie types to use search to go to a URL and that absolutely everyone else is doing exactly that already no exceptions I'm not sure what they stand to gain...

[Adam 1]

don't go there Google. it's turtles all the way down

A user agent filter with a 302 redirect to www.www.example.com.

Then bind these to the same site.

[John Crisp]

That'll help....

Been having arguments with Barclays over PCI DSS compliance.

Their mail appeared to come from

barclaycarddatasecuritymanager.co.uk

So I went to that URL which gives a nice insecure cert warning:

https://barclaycarddatasecuritymanager.co.uk/

As opposed to:

https://www.barclaycarddatasecuritymanager.co.uk/

How is Chrome going to help??

This is crazy.

[stiine]

I saw this yesterday

With version 69.0.whocares. The first thing I thought was that I'd picked up a virus. Then, after clicking in the address bar, and on the web page several times, I realized that the fuckers who decided to hide http:// had upped their fucking game. And I really wish they'd stop it.

[Spanners]

Can it be scripted?

Can one script settings in Chrome flags?

This is certainly something I would need to turn off in every device I come across. There are a couple of other ones that I am already doing.

[jMcPhee]

This is a great feature for...

...my arthritic 80 year old mother.

Maybe that's their target market.

[Version 1.0]

Thanks El Reg

I appreciate the pointer to the flag to disable this POS change. Thank You.

[illuminatus]

How long before...

Someone proposes (like, for example, Google) an intermediate layer to remove DNS from the equation for the end user and just use URNs instead, then the URN->URL mapping is abstracted elsewhere.

[jms222]

Explorer filenames

We've been here before.

Remember when Windows Explorer started chopping file extensions by default so we started to get emails with stuff.pdf.exe and the like ?

[Unicornpiss]

Less is more -- not!

This is the trend over the last couple of decades. Everyone is dumbing down everything these days. Most newer laptops don't have indicators for hard disk activity. Win10's menus are very vague, and good luck figuring out how "Preparing to configure Windows" for an hour actually relates to what might be going on inside your computer.

Unfortunately when people think they're being somehow smart by dumbing everything down, you end up with even dumber people in the populace over time.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Less is more -- not!

Best Windows 10 pop-up I got was "Something went wrong" after a failed update. Just a single "OK" button to click and when I did it attempted a reboot. There was still nothing but a blank screen when I sent that back for the supplier to figure out.

[onefang]

Re: Less is more -- not!

'Best Windows 10 pop-up I got was "Something went wrong" after a failed update.'

In the next version it'll be dumbed down even further. After a failed update you're entire screen will turn black, with just a single word on it in large white letters - "Fuck!". Then you will know that your computer is Fuck!ed, and it's time to buy a new one.

[vtcodger]

Re: Less is more -- not!

"you're entire screen will turn black"

Blue is traditional.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Less is more -- not!

"Blue is traditional."

Shhhhhhhh! They already changed everything else. Don't give them more ideas.

[Mike 137]

Re: Less is more -- not!

".. you end up with even dumber people in the populace over time."

And the real joke is that each successive generation of 'smart' people is drawn from an increasingly dumb population.

This might explain some of the problem, but as is frequently demonstrated in both physics and biology, everything that persists is ultimately self limiting, and if it's not it doesn't persist, so maybe there's still hope for the future.

[onefang]

Two things.

For some odd reason, I sometimes get redirected to the mobile version of certain sites, and some of these sites don't have a "go to desktop version" button. My solution is usually to delete the "m." part from the URL, or replace it with "www." if it's being a bitch that day.

Soma FM has a radio channel / station called Groove Salad, one of my favourites. The "DJ" is a computer generated voice called "Big URL" (pronounced "Big Earl"). I don't think they'll like Google shortening that to "Big", that'll ruin the joke.

[John Brown (no body)]

"For some odd reason, I sometimes get redirected to the mobile version of certain sites, and some of these sites don't have a "go to desktop version" button. My solution is usually to delete the "m." part from the URL, or replace it with "www." if it's being a bitch that day."

According to the article, if you click in the address bar, the full, proper URI appears so you can edit it.

[jms222]

mobile vs desktop versions

> some of these sites don't have a "go to desktop version" button

Browsers generally have this on a menu.

A couple of things I do regularly.

web.whatsapp.com request the desktop version to use it on an iPad

news.bbc request the mobile version (on your full fat OS) to get playable video rather than Flash error messages

[Rich 2]

Just like MS

This is exactly akin to Microshaft's "brilliant" idea of hiding file name extensions.

Because that's not caused any grief at all over the years, has it?

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Just like MS

> Because that's not caused any grief at all over the years, has it?

Come on! It is much more comforting to see trustme.pdf instead of that scary trustme.pdf.exe

P.S., for firefox, set browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false to stop it hiding the http:// prefix.

[Dwarf]

RFC's

So, which Internet RFC is this complying with ?

Google don't define the standards, they are supposed to follow them and if they want to do something thats different, put in a new RFC to get those who oversee the Internet to agree if its the right thing to do.

Otherwise, the browser is simply a non-compliant piece of software and people will avoid it.

[JohnFen]

Re: RFC's

This behavior is not covered by an RFC one way or another.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RFC's

Google can do whatever they like. That is their choice.

If people want to use non standards compliant browsers, that is their choice.

Get over it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RFC's

Looks like 5 people don't like choice.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Vae victis!

All those of you who couldn't bear the slow, ugly, bloated Firefox.

[J27]

Google complains about misleading URLs, then makes the situation worse.

Smooth move.

[DavidRa]

I don't think you understand - this is Google demonstrating the problem so they can propose the advertising- and tracking-based fix.

[js6898]

is switching to Edge the answer, particularly now it will have disable html5 autoplay gunction (which is the only reason i use cjrome)

[GrumpenKraut]

JFYI: in firefox, set media.autoplay.enabled to false. So far, I have not encountered any auto-playing video after making this setting.

The icon has nothing to do with this post, apologies in advance.

[Unicornpiss]

Have an upvote for that setting

"JFYI: in firefox, set media.autoplay.enabled to false. So far, I have not encountered any auto-playing video after making this setting."

[JDX]

Are they keeping HTTP(s)?

From my days of setting up a website, I'm sure http://www.<mydomain> and http://<mydomain> are technically different - I recall cases where one would work and not the other though please someone feel free to explain why?

[Crypto Monad]

Re: Are they keeping HTTP(s)?

> I'm sure http://www.<mydomain> and http://<mydomain> are technically different - I recall cases where one would work and not the other though please someone feel free to explain why?

1. In the DNS, "www.example.com" and "example.com" are two different names. They can point to two different IP addresses - that is, the user would end up connecting to two completely different servers. Or: one name might have an IP address and the other does not, in which case trying to use the other name would give a DNS error.

2. Even if both names point to the same IP address, the web browser sends a "Host" header containing the hostname part of the URL. The web server may respond with different content depending on which host was requested. It might not be configured with one of the names and return a page not found error instead.

(A fairly common example where you want different content is when "www.example.com" is the real site, and "example.com" just returns a redirect to the real site)

3. For HTTPS sites, the certificate might have been issued to "www.example.com" only. This would mean that a request to https://example.com/ would be flagged as insecure, because the certificate name doesn't match.

You can have a certificate which contains two subjectAlternativeNames - or you can have two different certificates and use Server Name Indication to select which one to use. But not everyone remembers to do this.

[jake]

Re: Are they keeping HTTP(s)?

JCX, in my case www,example.com points at the web server, ftp.example.com points at the FTP server, gopher.example.com points at the gopher server, etc. Plain ol' example.com points at a simple menu that offers a choice of the above, with an explanation of why I chose to do it that way.

[nijam]

I blame the idiots who started the trend of using www. as a way of (re)writing http: at the beginning of a URL.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Land Grab!

URLs are fundamental to the democracy of the internet. If you remove user's familiarity with URLs then you gradually limit their choice of browser & thus sources. This is contrary to the idea of an open web, unless you replace http with an equal protocol. But, no surprises from Google!

[arctic_haze]

A question

What do you get if you copy the URL? If the copied URL is not complete it may not work.

How stupid would that be?

[dubious]

Re: A question

I'd assume they'll do the same annoying thing they did when they last started hiding bits of the URL such as 'http[s]' which was that when you copied the host bit of the URL to paste into a shell window they'd "helpfully" add the invisible protocol bit back and you'd find yourself trying to, say, ssh into "https://example.com/"... Genius.

Ditched Chrome after a bug report for this crappy protocol and path hiding of essentially 'this is v.stupid and at a minimum please for the love of Dog have a flag to disable it' was closed with wontFix and an arrogant retort from the Chrome devs.

[Mage]

Typical of Google.

Arrogant.

[Claverhouse]

Morose Little Gits

God, Google are stupid.

[JohnFen]

I'm so happy

Crap like this (and the other changes Chrome is making there) make me very, very happy that I don't use Chrome. I hope that no other browser makers start doing this.

[Someone Else]

How Microsoft of them

The move apparently cuts down on unneeded "trivial" characters that normies and techies alike shouldn't, according to the browser's developers, worry about in 2018.

Yes, of course. Just like Microsoft, YAN hi-tech firm knowing more what's better for you than you do..

Fuckheads!

[planetvampire]

As a webmaster, I think I might be just *slightly* annoyed by Google's stance and making a one-man protest. I actually *want* my visitors to know that they are definitely not on the bare domain as the URL. For now, https://www.planetvampire.com/ now redirects to https://double-yoo-double-yoo-double-yoo.planetvampire.com/ . Now it has even more characters displayed in the URL bar. C'mon Google, I should not have to resort to such silly measures to counter your silliness.

[Jamie Jones]

LOL, you weren't joking!

[planetvampire]

Another good example http://chiark.greenend.org.uk/ vs http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/

The bare domain tells the user they need to actually put www in front. But as far as the user is concerned in Chrome 69, it vanishes again as soon as they type it and hit enter... C'mon!

[ZenCoder]

https://forums.theregister.co.uk vs https://www.theregister.co.uk

Title says it all but still I'll say more ...

Last time I functioned as server admin

/www. = live website

/dev. = clone of live website to test security updates before applying them to /www.

/test. = clone of live website to test new features

/m.= mobile friendly version of website.

/ftp. = file repository

/forums. = forums

OK there are other options other than using subdomains ... said options either require that I create either register domainnamedeve.com or domainname.com/dev Neither saves significant amounts of space.

If they wanted to simply hide www, but display any other subdomain ... that would be acceptable. Anything else and well ... I've heard nice things about Firefox lately.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's the problem with using a different browser?

It's not like there's no alternatives or that Google owes you anything.

The user, and only the user, defines value. No one else.

You always have a choice...

[Jamie Jones]

Mischief

1) Register a domain:whatever.com

2) Create a www subdomain, host a website on it full of criticism and insults against google.

3) Have the IP for "whatever.com" point to one of googles services.

4) User reports or looks up the ip address of the site they think they are on, and they think it's google.

5) ???

6) Profit!

It's too late on a friday night (hic!) to think properly, but I'm sure some evil could be done along these lines... even more effectively, probably, using the "m." bit.

[Florida1920]

Thanks!

Thanks for the heads-up. I fixed the problem before it became one.

[LenG]

Reminded

I just fired up chrome to disable this stupid "feature". I was immediately reminded how much I hate that browser and why I never use it except for compatibility checking.

[adfh]

Oh FFS!

This is bullshit..

It's bad enough when you're looking at an internal website, using an internal domain, and you switch to another system, and it thinks you're wanting to make a Google search because you didn't manually add the protocol back to the beginning of the URL ... again ...

[Tom Paine]

Nope

Very bad idea.

[Tom Paine]

Chromium

...the upstream open source project's browser is pretty good before Google gets to it. I use it on Linux. Must check Firefox out again though, I was always a Ffx user but it choked horribly on LinkedIn for some reason whilst I was job hunting, and I'm too lazy to have switched back.

[jake]

Re: Chromium

"it choked horribly on LinkedIn for some reason"

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Who cares?

Reg readers visit the following site:

The north face - all clothes and the mandatory over-sized black backpack.

HP - computers.

Samsung - phones.

Casio - watches, where worn.

Apple - wish fulfilment.

Pornhub and Netflix - entertainment.

Just eat - food.

Amazon - everything else.

Chrome might as well put these sites on a menu bar and ditch the url box altogether.

[jake]

Re: Seriously. Who cares?

Well, I for one don't even have any of those sites in my history.

Good try, though. Have a cookie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously. Who cares?

Thanks mate; appreciated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks a bundle

"Others suggested the move is part of a larger effort by Google to hide the inconvenient fact that many websites – including El Reg, we must admit – are served using Google's mobile-optimized AMP tech, or via Google's AMP cache in which the ad giant gets sites' web traffic all to itself."

I have gone out of my way to avoid interactions with Google due to their parasitic profiling practices. Now I find out that Google know about all my interactions with the Register?

[RedCardinal]

Remind em again why I would want to sue Google Chrome as my browser of choice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to relaunch the web-dot campaign!

[EnviableOne]

Re-defining RFC3986

Ok so the great Tim et. al defined the uri and included this:

Uniformity provides several benefits. It allows different types of resource identifiers to be used in the same context, even when the mechanisms used to access those resources may differ. It allows uniform semantic interpretation of common syntactic conventions across different types of resource identifiers. It allows introduction of new types of resource identifiers without interfering with the way that existing identifiers are used. It allows the identifiers to be reused in many different contexts, thus permitting new applications or protocols to leverage a pre-existing, large, and widely used set of resource identifiers.

So how can this one use case justify changing what are UNI-FORM across all other implementations, just to justify their drive to render 2/5 less charcters?

oh and what happens if something different is posted at abc.com and www.abc.com? is on my domain