Google resumes its senseless attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 85

Google has tried on and off for years to hide full URLs in Chrome's address bar, because apparently long web addresses are scary and evil. Despite the public backlash that came after every previous attempt, Google is pressing on with new plans to hide all parts of web addresses except the domain name.

A few new feature flags have appeared in Chrome's Dev and Canary channels (V85), which modify the appearance and behavior of web addresses in the address bar. The main flag is called Omnibox UI Hide Steady-State URL Path, Query, and Ref" which hides everything in the current web address except the domain name. For example, https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/06/07/lenovo-ideapad-flex-5-chromebook-review/" is simply displayed as androidpolice.com."

As I've said numerous times before, I like the idea of seeing if we can improve the way browsers how browsers display addresses - if we don't try to improve because that's just how things are, we end up with garbage like the UNIX/Linux directory naming conventions. However, I don't think Google doing this singlehandedly and one its own is a good idea; this should be a standards-based process, open to comments from everyone.