Google is messing with the address bar again—new experiment hides URL path

Found on Ars Technica on Tuesday, 16 June 2020
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As spotted by Android Police, new flags in the developer versions of the popular browser now want to hide the URL path. So for an article like this one, instead of "https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/google-is-messing-with-the-address-bar-again-new-experiment-hides-url-path/," the address bar would show "arstechnica.com."

It's unknown what Google's plans are for the experiment, but hiding more URL information would line up with Chrome's previous actions. For years the Chrome team has wanted to kill the URL bar, arguing that it's a confusing way to express Web identity. While Google hasn't outright killed the bar yet, Chrome has made numerous changes to try to "simplify" the URL bar. Currently, Chrome hides URL protocol if it is HTTP or HTTPS.

Can we please stop dumbing down users? For decades now, seeing the URL has confused nobody, but now Google thinks it is too complex. The full URL is an important information, and messing with that is flat out a stupid idea.