“We plan to hide ‘https’ scheme and subdomain ‘www’ in Chrome omnibox in M76”
Hm, hiding the protocol and the host part in the address – what next, hiding the domain? However, the path is hidden already, what&#x27;s left then?<p>Seriously speaking: If browsers are simplifying the URI scheme for the alleged benefit of users, how do we expect these users to know anything about addresses? Isn&#x27;t this rather undermining security than enhancing it? Highlighting significant parts may be preferable to hiding those deemed insignificant. Moreover, regarding https, I personally prefer positive affirmation over lack of warning.<p>For me, this worked best for desktop browsers with the padlock icon (and, before this, the key icon) shown together with a display of link targets in a status bar as a separate, reserved area. (While allowing pages to overwrite `window.status` was certainly not a good idea.) A consistent display of the authority issuing the certificate of the current page in a status bar like this may be also nice. I&#x27;m not convinced that less but more opaque information is the way to go.<p>Dedicating 20 vertical pixels of virtual real estate to security relevant information may be worth it. It may be also easier to parse than an overloaded omnnibox&#x2F;location&#x2F;search&#x2F;navigation&#x2F;security&#x2F;menu bar. Cutting down any information which is displayed too densely right from the beginning won&#x27;t help the issue. How many bits of information are there in this &quot;everything bar&quot;? Yes, there&#x27;s still a bit of grouping left, mainly by spacing, but color is mostly gone as a signal in order to make the information density bearable. So users will be applying quite an amount of selectivity when parsing this display, by this inevitably missing relevant information. (That this densely combined display is rather homogenous both for esthetics and acceptance just aggravates the need for selective parsing, which is likely to become a habit.) &quot;We&#x27;ll pre-filter this for you&quot; isn&#x27;t addressing the problem, it&#x27;s rather &quot;living with the outcome&quot;.<p>Edit: A legitimate reason for redacting the host name are extensive names, crafted to exceed the space available in the location display in order to deceive users regarding the identity of the host. Here, abbreviating by an ellipsis (compare text-overflow: ellipsis) in order to fully display the domain may be a way to go.<p>--<p>P.S.: What&#x27;s the general lesson taught by such redactions by the browser vendor? That it is OK to ignore these things, as they are truly irrelevant? (Must be without significance, since Google told me so?)