[nessunodoro]

Google is many different companies and products, and some of them I'm so grateful for. They provide a simple product that does something magically better than the competition, don't screw with the recipe. I give them my data because I like the service.

But the company-wide decision to manipulate the URL as a business strategy drains all my enthusiasm. The "U" is really important! The URL is basically a filename that you use to access the data store called the Internet. Don't take it away from me by the brute force of market dominance. I need to be sure of where I'm addressing my packets. Don't tamper with that essential construct.

I use both browsers, but without Firefox, I'd be lost in the wilderness. With its recent layoffs I'm worried about the web.

[IX-103]

Is it really a company-wide strategy to manipulate the URL? The Chrome change was based on user studies that showed that people do not understand URLs.

The days of URLs as a data access key are gone. So many other things (cookies, etc) go into controlling what pages show that what was originally a 1:1 mapping between URL and content is now a many to many mapping. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but that's the web we live in now.

[RonanTheGrey]

Doesn't matter if they understand it or not. It's the one and only barrier between you and malicious actors, or you and a monopolist. And oh look there's Google, attacking the one thing that protects the world from their ownership of the web.

People might not understand how a seat belt works, it's still there and we still use them.

[FillardMillmore]

Do you happen to have a link to those studies?

[yipbub]

> I give them my data because I like the service.

They take your data and everyone's regardless of if you want them too. That you don't mind hardly makes that better.