The Next-Generation Browser: No URL Bar
conceivablytech.com
conceivablytech.com
Remember AOL's use of keywords to go to specific pages for companies before the days of the web? A future without a URL bar gives Google that much more power, which is just how they want it.
In that future you'll type all your urls in the google search box, and they get to show you ads for similar sites or topics, assuming you are lucky enough to be near the top.
I wonder how long before Google introduces a 'keyword' product where you can register a specific keyword to go straight to your domain.
The URL box and the search box have been merged in just about every current browser in some form or the other already. To most people, they're actually the same thing.
The scarier implications of this could be for phishing, which the article touches on. I'm expecting some kind of visual cue on tabs that are HTTPS eventually.
> I wonder how long before Google introduces a 'keyword' product where you can register a specific keyword to go straight to your domain.
They've had it forever: I'm Feeling Lucky.
The semantics are different though.
Type in 'books.com' in your URL bar.
Type in 'books.com' in the Google search box.
Not the same. The former is disappearing.
Forever. They wouldn't restrict their market in that way. As it stands they sell the same words over and over which makes them more money and gives a better user experience.
Many users are already in that future. One of Google's most common searches is "facebook.com" or "www.facebook.com" (if memory serves, both are in the top 10, along with "facebook").
It makes me sad, but I don't think Google's complaining.
URLs aren't optional if we want to have a world wide web. Otherwise it's just AOL redux. If URLs become this thing that only experienced users know about (or that we allow naive users to forget about) we're losing something important.
http://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=2570690&whence=item%3fid%3d2570434
URLs aren't good against phishing also. Having to discern "facebook.com" from "faceboook.com" as a normal user is much too error-prone. Better mechanisms are needed here anyway.
How will you know what site you're on?
How will you prevent me from doing some clever SEO to turn up in a google search for your bank before their own website so I can scam you?
How will you be able to return to that site you liked but don't have the address for since the URL was hidden?
How will you market and position your site if noone knows the URL?
How will you do offline marketing if users don't know how to get to the URL you provided?
I definitely think we're losing something important.
Using the same icon I used to get here today.
> How will you know what site you're on?
By the page title or by looking at the site, same as I do today
> How will you prevent me from doing some clever SEO to turn up in a google search for your bank before their own website so I can scam you?
The same as today, Chrome pops up a malicious site warning.
> How will you be able to return to that site you liked but don't have the address for since the URL was hidden?
Search. Same as today considering a fair number of users type URLs into Google as it is (facebook.com is one of the very top Google searches)
> How will you market and position your site if noone knows the URL?
Market by the URL, no one is suggesting you won't be able to use the URL to arrive at a site. It's just killing the always shown URL bar.
> How will you know what site you're on?
Hacker News has a bright orange bar at the top. Facebook is pretty blue. I think the address bar is the least identifying piece of a website.
> How will you be able to return to that site you liked but don't have the address for since the URL was hidden?
If I forgot to bookmark it, I'll do what I do now: use google
> How will you market and position your site if noone knows the URL? > How will you do offline marketing if users don't know how to get to the URL you provided?
I don't want to lose the URL, I want to lose the address bar after you have accessed the site and you don't need to see it anymore.
The key difference between phone numbers and URLs is that everyone recognises that phone numbers exist, or at least know they're meaningful.
About 1 in 5 offer me a URL right away, maybe 3 out of 5 will give me a URL once I ask for one, and about 1 in 5 doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about. It's depressing to think that it's going to get even harder for people, in the beginning of the linked data era where URLs are becoming the universal namespace.
I love browsers that get out of the way, so displaying the address bar in a more intelligent way is something I welcome. I doubt it will disappear entirely.
Users don't know if it's a legitimate site anyway. Plus Google offers phishing protection.
Moreover, since most websites are fixed-width and that computers are moving to 16/9, I don't get why browsers (I know, not Opera) make it very hard to make vertical toolbars (like shortcuts and bookmarks, for example) on the sides...
I really must be missing something on what people want and do with their computers...
http://i.imgur.com/UwhLg.png http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/