They started following the Chrome screwed-up-statusbar a long time ago. It's like noone in the webdev space knows the basic usability adage, "Don't use popups!". The Chrome-style hover-status thing is a popup. Statusbars are correct.
The status bar IMO should have more things e.g. download status, but the browsers chose not go to that direction. OK, then remove the statusbar and put the link-direction in the location bar instead during the hover.