Google Chrome 76, released a few days ago, has a surprising change: It hides the www. and https:// for website addresses in the omnibox, or address bar. This comes after an outcry when Google tried this back in Chrome 69.
As spotted by Bleeping Computer, the latest stable version of Chrome now hides these parts of URLs. So, if you go to “https://ift.tt/2YvuPD9;, Chrome’s address bar will just say “howtogeek.com”.
If you still want to see the full URL, you can. Simply double-click in Chrome’s omnibar (address box) to reveal it. If you have Google’s Suspicious Site Reporter extension installed, Chrome will always show the full address. There’s also a Chrome flag you can disable—just head to chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-hide-steady-state-url-scheme-and-subdomains
Chrome now hides WWW. and HTTPS:// in its address bar. Do you care? https://t.co/JkRZzJYNYp
— How-To Geek (@howtogeek) August 1, 2019
Google thinks these details aren’t important. You can still tell if you’re using an encrypted https:// address by looking for the lock next to the website’s name—or, more accurately, the absence of the “Not Secure” indicator you see on unencrypted http:// addresses. Google already hid the “http://” from unencrypted websites.
And, while addresses like “www.howtogeek.com” and “howtogeek.com” can technically point to different web pages, they almost never do.
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Source: How-To Geek
