#Chrome 86 hides HTTPS and WWW in the address bar by default

Table of Contents

“#Chrome 86 hides HTTPS and WWW in the address bar by default”

in Chrome 86, which is now in Canary, Google has updated the address bar. The change made it harder to see www and https portions, which are now hidden by default.

RECOMMENDED: Click here to fix Windows errors and optimize system performance

Google is working on hiding the above elements for quite a long time. The company finds them redundant as most websites are already using Let’s Encrypt and other options to provide a secure connection (HTTPS) for the end user.

The www portion is not considered important, as it doesn’t tell much to the end user these days.

Google Chrome Hides Url Portions 1

As spotted by Ghacks, to see the missing parts of the URL, you have to click twice(!) inside the address bar. Then both www and https portions appear.

Google Chrome Hides Url Portions

Here is how it works:

I find this change bad and non-friendly to the user. Personally, I visit a few websites that render DIFFERENTLY with and without WWW. It will be annoying to perform extra clicks to switch between their layouts.

Also, I do not understand what issue exactly Google is solving by hiding the URL portions.

As of now, Google provides a special option to restore the URLS (show the full address) in the address bar. Check out the following:

Always Show Full URL Address in Google Chrome

But there’s no guarantee than the search giant won’t decide to remove it in the near future.

As of this writing, Google Chrome 86 is in the Canary branch. It won’t take long to see the change in the production branch.

A Firefox user? Check out Restore https:// and www in Address Bar in Firefox 75.