[Kye]

It depended on the browser, but I remember IE6 showed how long a page took to load, zone/where it came from (local, internet, "Trusted Sites," etc). All I can find when Googling are old posts on how to fix it when some plugin broke it. I think Firefox's version used to be something you could add, remove, and edit with Firefox's toolbar customizer thing.

[freediver]

Thanks for taking time to research it. It also had page zoom and other useful options. It seems as if the need for more viewing surface killed the status bar.