Google Chrome Will Display the Full Url of a Website Again

The simplified Omnibox didn’t help users identify malicious sites.

Google has been shortening URLs in the Chrome Omnibox search bar for the past several years, saying it made it easier for users to identify trustworthy domains. Now, however, it has abandoned that experiment and will display the entire URL.

Engadget writes about it.

Google was once planning to remove URLs entirely and just display search terms. More recently, it simplified the Omnibox by hiding “https://www" and showing only the domain name. Google claimed it was trying to simplify life for the average user.

“They’re hard to read, it’s hard to know what part of them should be trusted, and in general, I don’t think URLs work as a good way to convey a site’s identity,” Chrome manager Adrienne Porter Felt told Wired in 2018.

But once Google dropped the www. prefix from sites, critics and other sources noted that two different sites could appear identical, potentially exposing users to phishing attacks.

Now Google has admitted that the idea didn’t work as expected. “The simplified domain experiment has been canceled,” wrote CTO Emily Stark. “This experiment did not change the relevant security metrics, so we are not going to continue it.”

Cursor previously reported that Google will change the search engine selection screen for Android users.

Google is changing the Android search engine selection screen in Europe, following complaints from competitors about its pay-to-play model.