[combatentropy]

Syntax highlighting is all I think they should do. If they want to color "http:" red to show that it's insecure, fine, but don't hide it entirely.

In 69, the version that just came out, they have begun to sometimes hide the subdomain. It threw me for a loop, because someone sent me a link to the mobile version of Wikipedia:

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/

but the URL bar said just:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/

The page layout was very different, and I wanted to switch to normal. But at first it looked like I was at the normal URL and maybe Wikipedia had changed its look and feel overnight.

Thankfully you can disable this in chrome://flags, at "Omnibox UI Hide Steady-State URL Scheme and Trivial Subdomains." But this still doesn't bring back "http:"

Firefox too now hides "http:" but you can get it back in about:config, by setting browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false.

[CompuHacker]

Chrome and Firefox developers have been actively pushing the trimURLs concept for years and will actually fight you about it, claiming that users won't care or understand.

> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41467

Misrepresentation of URLs by default is becoming increasingly common. The URL doesn't have to fit in the box on every device, and if I don't know what resource I requested and how I can't troubleshoot my problems.

[pvorb]

I agree that syntax highlighting is the only thing they should do and I think that hiding technical details will inevitably lead to its own security risks.

The same has happened with Microsoft hiding file extensions from users in Windows by default, which leads to malware hidden in party.jpg.com email attachments or similar things. It's one of the first things I turn off, when I'm on a new Windows machine.