Google Slammed for Chrome Change That Strips Out "WWW" from Domains

Megalith

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Google Chrome developers advised they would wait until Fall or Spring to disclose how they would “kill” URLs, but it appears the endeavor has already begun: users have found that the latest build, Chrome 69, hides the “WWW” and “M” subdomains in the address bar. Bleeping Computer has instructions on how to restore what Google insists is “trivial.”

"This is a dumb change. No part of a domain should be considered 'trivial'. As an ISP, we often have to go to great lengths to teach users that 'www.domain.com' and 'domain.com' are two different domains, and that they may not necessarily go to the same destination. The marketing world has done a lot of damage convincing people that 'www' is both ubiquitous and non-essential, when in fact, for some domains, the use or lack of it can be quite important to getting to the correct location."
 
As someone that often works with more than one domain I can attest that hiding the www. is a really stupid move. If I wanted people to use my general domain name I wouldn't give then a url that has a www. in front of it. The lack of a www. can also play merry hob with cookie management as well.
 
If you double click in the address bar it shows the www

Just found this out. Seems like a visual change ( a pointless one) but don't see the big deal.
 
Google should just have a word that you type in so it will take you to the site. Like a keyword or something that goes right to the site. No need to remember long URLs.
They can call it something like accelerated online keywords.
 
That didn't take long.

This is exactly what I expected they'd do. Show just the domain.tld and fade or make it hover/click only for the other parts of the domain. Obviously, subdomain should be left alone.

Since they also own .google (I think), I'd imagine it's going to make the page maps.google, gmail.google, drive.google, etc.
 
Between the asshattery of Google and Mozilla I would never have thought I would miss Safari for Windows.

Time to purge Chrome and switch to Chromium.
 
This is hurting way more people than it's helping. This seriously is fucking ignorant of them to do.
 
www should've been gone a long time ago. "World Wide Web" is a relic from the 90s that has somehow managed to cling on for dear life for decades. It really just needs to fade away quietly.
 
Google should just have a word that you type in so it will take you to the site. Like a keyword or something that goes right to the site. No need to remember long URLs.
They can call it something like accelerated online keywords.

Sounds like AOL all over again.
 
Back to Firefox (been switching around a lot lately).

It's sad though that Safari is the most stable/consistent browser going... but it's on Mac. :/
 
When setting up a website, I usually set the DNS to www and have the blahblah.com point to that. Removing the www will cause files to be placed in wrong folders inexperienced people, especially issues with HTTPS activation.
 
Google 'amping' up its assault on the net.

Oh God...this is the most frustrating fucking bullshit that I've ever seen them do. It's the only reason I use Bing as my search provider in Chrome on my phone.

To not even have the option to turn it off makes me see it as a complete nefarious move.

Actually, speaking of which, what web browser is as good that I can replace Chrome with? Firefox any better than it was? Every time I've used it in the past I always had some sort of issue.
 
the full domain name and www. should always lead to same page if it doesn't then you have a website configuration problem (subdomain hiding i don't agree with)

Well, I am kind of a rookie, but AFAIK there is absolutely nothing DNS-wise that forces domain.com and www.domain.com to take you to the exact same place. Those are 2 separate DNS entries, and they can be different. Not to mention you can have one and not the other, or whatever.
 
Oh God...this is the most frustrating fucking bullshit that I've ever seen them do. It's the only reason I use Bing as my search provider in Chrome on my phone.

To not even have the option to turn it off makes me see it as a complete nefarious move.

Actually, speaking of which, what web browser is as good that I can replace Chrome with? Firefox any better than it was? Every time I've used it in the past I always had some sort of issue.

Give Firefox a go, it's nice again.
 
Question is how the browser handles things...
Is www.namehere.com a straight DNS query
vs.
namehere.com being handled.. ? A Google search first? A DNS query that if it fails it adds/ assumes www after and tries that? Shit like this?

I think I have tried/ used this before.. long ago... somewhere.. ? Didn't like it.. and i think when the address without the www was typed in but didn't work, it did other stuff than just a DNS query I think. Anyway Ive always use www. .. its muscle memory by now anyway.
I had it in my mind this was a common " feature" if im honest.
 
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So after they break every websites ssl cert structure they'll start offering discounted wildcard certs right
 
Actually, speaking of which, what web browser is as good that I can replace Chrome with? Firefox any better than it was? Every time I've used it in the past I always had some sort of issue.
Pale Moon
 
Seamonkey is my browser of choice.

Chrome has been horrible, trash for me for a while, 2 tabs open and it pulls a GiB of memory, Eats CPU time, Spies on you, chrome == trash
 
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Dropping the www would introduce a forced inconsistency. mail.domain.com, ftp.domain.com, pop.domain.com, www.domain.com can all resolve to different addresses and servers. Forcing things to assume a missing www should always resolve to a web server will likely break a bunch of stuff.
 
It's incredibly rare that your Apex a record isn't your website if you're host it on that name. Which ever one you pin the site against (Apex,week or otherwise) you rewrite the other anyway.

They've not changed the behaviour of DNS, just what is displayed.

It's just the next logical step, like we don't write http any more. People will adapt, that's Google's power in a way. If you're in a browser, generally www is a given, and if it's not then you're writing a proper url anyway. Hopefully they still show it for region prefixes, that's valid, relevent and technically a solid use case for zones.

As an aside, I'd be interested to see how many people actually use or follow urls anyway, Google or autocomplete seem pretty ubiquitous and even though by most measures I'm a hardcore nerd the only time I can think of navigating is when I do BBC.co.uk/news, most often it's just landing page then click through. They'll have the data that supports it either way.

Also a lot of the arguments I saw elsewhere can just be boiled down to people doing weird or stupid shit. That MS thing is fucking dumb, fucking redirects for shit product strategy. Almost as annoying as 404ing half the site because you changed your url strategy and were too dumb to translate. Drives me fucking crazy
 
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As an aside, I'd be interested to see how many people actually use or follow urls anyway, Google or autocomplete seem pretty ubiquitous and even though by most measures I'm a hardcore nerd the only time I can think of navigating is when I do BBC.co.uk/news, most often it's just landing page then click through. They'll have the data that supports it either way.

The fact that we needed away from the standard MBR boot does not mean it was a good idea to come up with a solution to which Microsoft holds all the keys for.

By the same token, if we are to change URL behavior, I would rather have some third party discussing and implementing it. Big companies always like to improve things... "for the greater good", yeah right.
 
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