Kill Your Browser's Address Bar? Pros and Cons

Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are working on deemphasizing your browser's address bar to maximize screen space and put the focus on web apps instead of websites

Seen at PC World Magazine

I was pissed at IE9 for removing the search bar!

So no, not hot on the idea of removing the address bar as well.

Pretty soon Chrome is going to be the playskool browser :/

Only reason I have the address bar showing these days is easy access to the extensions.
Opera has the keyboard sequence Alt l a to toggle the address bar ( lower case L) & F2 pops up go to page for searching or entering a address or nickname.

I'm indifferent about removing the search bar since you can search from the address bar.
But now removing the address bar is a different story, its kinda important. I dont want to trust a search engines first response for a web page address.

I'm sick of every browser trying to maxmize screenspace. It's 1 of the reasons I don't use Chrome since they took out the bottom statusbar that shows links when you hover and whatnot. I'm fine with the space I have now.

For security reason, i would rather keep it.

The downside of hiding the URL bar, however, is that it reduces your ability to know where a link is taking you

Lucky

mckillwashere said:

I'm indifferent about removing the search bar since you can search from the address bar.
But now removing the address bar is a different story, its kinda important. I dont want to trust a search engines first response for a web page address.

Except searching from the address bar sucks. It eats your search string, makes it MUCH harder to change search providers in the mddle of searching, and occasionally minefields you when there is only a single search for something you typed that is a url. Entering "sealion" then hitting enter /thinking/ your going to get google or bing up searching for sealion for example takes you to "sealion.com" instead (just an illustration, that particular one doesn't happen). It's annoying and dangerous.

Removing the search bar is another level of annoying and dangerous.

The playskooling of software, driven by smartphones and tablets is seems but leaking over onto desktops/workstations, is a really horrible trend in software these days

IE8 IMHO had the perfect interface for my power use of the browser. IE9, FF, Chrome are now locked in a battle of UI stupidity

fseal said:

Except searching from the address bar sucks. It eats your search string, makes it MUCH harder to change search providers in the mddle of searching, and occasionally minefields you when there is only a single search for something you typed that is a url. Entering "sealion" then hitting enter /thinking/ your going to get google or bing up searching for sealion for example takes you to "sealion.com" instead (just an illustration, that particular one doesn't happen). It's annoying and dangerous.

Not a problem if you use Opera open the address field with Alt D or F2 type g followed by a space for Google or b for Bing space then the search term.
You can create a search for any site that has a search field all it needs is a right click in the search field and select create search.

In IE8 everything was there and worked great. Search string was always visible, no command keys needed, always editable, and multiple search engines a mouse click away without having to retype anything :)

It was minimalist enough, but extremely functional. I think that was the peak convergence point. We are now tipping way over to the other side.

Not sure I like having to constantly hit control keys to get functionality I use 50 times a day. For example "ctrl+F" which even in IE 8 was needed to find text on the current page...