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Comment by jray | Hacker News Reader

Why doesn't it have a status bar? All the software I use has a status bar, but for years it has become fashionable not to have one in browsers.

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It does have a status bar. Or we are talking about different things?

They probably mean a bar at the bottom that shows what's going on. All browsers used to have it. Then it dropped to just showing which URL was currently loading. I don't think they even show that now. Most of what it had is accessible in greater detail with developer tools, but it was nice to have a little summary down there.

Status bar nowadays usually refers to the information usually showing the URL you are hovering.

Do you have any references to the old-school status bars and what they used to contain?

It depended on the browser, but I remember IE6 showed how long a page took to load, zone/where it came from (local, internet, "Trusted Sites," etc). All I can find when Googling are old posts on how to fix it when some plugin broke it. I think Firefox's version used to be something you could add, remove, and edit with Firefox's toolbar customizer thing.

Thanks for taking time to research it. It also had page zoom and other useful options. It seems as if the need for more viewing surface killed the status bar.

> Status bar nowadays usually refers to the information usually showing the URL you are hovering.

Oh yeah? Which particular Gods Of Modern Language decreed this, and who elected them to that position?

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