Google Chrome 85 Hides Full URL Addresses

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Google wants to follow in Apple’s footsteps by hiding the full URL in Google Chrome 85. Instead, with an optional (for now) toggle, users can choose to have the address bar display only the top level domain.

There’s no public explanation yet for why Google is pressing ahead with these changes, but the company has said in the past that it believes showing the full address can make it harder to tell if the current site is legitimate.

However, it’s also worth considering that making the web address less important, as this feature does, benefits Google as a company. Google’s goal with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and similar technologies is to keep users on Google-hosted content as much as possible, and Chrome for Android already modifies the address bar on AMP pages to hide that the pages are hosted by Google.

In other words, Google doesn’t want people to be able to tell the difference between Google and the internet.

Check It Out: Google Chrome 85 Hides Full URL Addresses

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