[TerraHertz]

Brilliant idea! And while we are going about removing unsightly, brain-straining details from every UI, let's remove all street signs, house numbers, highway exit signs, and so on. Also, hide all place names on all maps, Because who needs that complicated excessively detailed noise?

Instead at any time we can just call one of the ubiquitous Google-taxis, and ask it to take us to the place we can vaguely describe by some approximate references. When we get there, if it wasn't where we wanted to go, well that was our fault for not being more specific. We should try the Google-taxi again. But it might take a while to be sure it wasn't where we wanted, since... no visible address!

Seriously, this isn't just the stupidest browser-change idea ever. It's a deliberate move to dumb the net down and shift web functionality towards more total control by Google. You do realize Google censors search results, right? So if searching becomes the only way most people know to refer to/find a site, removing it from search engine results is equivalent to removing it from existence.

This isn't about 'UI tidyness' at all, this is about dis-empowerment of users, ensuring that naive web users never become more aware of how it all works, and ultimately about Control.

Personally I use full URLs all the time. I keep lists of article URLs in text files (like these: http://everist.org/archives/links/ ) as well as saving articles because they may disappear. I often explore in sites by direct editing URLs. I demand to see full URLs on mouse hover, before clicking links.

The 'hide/tidy the URL in the address bar' foolishness has been getting worse and worse for some time, and is a pain. Chopping the protocol off, graying out paths, shortening... I refuse to use a browser unless I can configure it to stop messing with the URL. No I don't want it animated, with bits appearing or disappearing depending on what I do. If you're complaining about superfluous visual detail, how is moving and changing the visible URL around all the time not worse than any static URL, no matter how long and machine-like? A static long URL I don't care about is fine, but if it _moves_ it demands attention.

I can't believe the people pushing this actually expect to get away with hiding Universal Resource Locators from web users. Literally, taking down the street signs and expecting people to trust google and other search engines to faithfully perform the task of taking us to places we want to go, without ever trying to _influence_ where we actually end up going.

Just like Google isn't trying trying to force fundamental and harmful browser functionality changes down our throats. Or coerce us all to joyfully become Google+ users. Or force everyone to use their real names in online forums, Or build Skynet for some reason (ref their ongoing purchases of every AI group they can.)

Also, take that "It's OK, the URL is still available, it's just hidden way down in here" assurance and shove it. Same thing as UEFI secure boot - "It's OK, the ability to install some other OS is still there, you just have to thenyzzzt em-thup jksdfh!" How can you be so naive? It's a process, a series of planned steps, and after the nth little harmless step, the capability won't be there at all. Most people won't even remember it ever existed.

All you people applauding this move... you've got to be kidding. Useful idiots perhaps? Or part of the choir.

If this sounds negative, do you understand how negative I think the idea of hiding URLs sounds? I'm having great difficulty refraining from using offensive language. The concept deserves a large serving of it.

[pdkl95]

The people in support of this horrific plan need to listen to PHK's advice at FOSDEM[1]. It may seem like he's talking about a certain three-letter-agency in that talk, but his thesis is far more general. It's a warning about how frighteningly trivial it is to prevent a whole crowd of techies from addressing core political/sociological problems by distracting them with useless technical distractions.

The question has nothing to do with what "URL" means, the various ideas about how to make an efficient UI, or even the current knowledge and skill-level (or lack thereof) found in the median user. Those are distractions.

Instead, the only question any of you should be asking is if removing URL visibility serves, in the long run, to educate and empower users, or if it instead removes power from users - even those that do not yet exercise that power.

Often - and especially here on HN - there is a tendency in geeks to avoid the hard political and sociological issue. Unfortunately, some issues are inherently non-technical at their core, and attempting to avoid those hard questions by limiting attention to the technical minutia, a political or sociological choice is still being made. All too often, it is leaving that choice to those who seek to steal power, making those that avoid the real question into useful idiots.

Because this is a crowd that enjoys scifi, a quote from the end of Sleeping In Light:

   "[Babylon 5] taught us that we had to create the future, or others will do it for us.
    It showed us that we have to care for each other – because if we don't, who will?
    And that strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.

    Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings,
    even for people like us."

Instead of giving the "large serving" of offensive language that this proposal does deserve, I suggest instead that there is still time to choose to create a future that includes a free internet similar to the one we've enjoyed, instead of another step towards the encroaching "dumbed down" corporate nonsense that treats users as idiots and actual internet addresses being only shown to some new corporate/techie priesthood.

[1] http://video.fosdem.org/2014/Janson/Sunday/NSA_operation_ORC...