Google Chrome Looks to Replace URLs

Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) have become tricky, manipulable, and unsafe for Internet users, so they must be changed to something more trustworthy.

That’s what the team behind Google Chrome, the leading web browser in the world, wants to work on to ensure URLs safely direct users to the websites they intend to go to.

In the early days of the Internet, remembering a URL was easy as most websites at the time only had the domain extension .com. Nowadays, the wide range of top-level domain extensions spread across the Internet does not only breed confusion but also puts unsuspecting users at risk of being hacked.

Cybercriminals can easily exploit a URL, get a user to click it, and extract their personal information without the user knowing it.

To put a stop to all exploitative practices on the Internet, Google Chrome told Wired that it wants to change the way people interact with websites by changing how URLs are displayed.

“They’re hard to read, it’s hard to know which part of them is supposed to be trusted, and in general I don’t think URLs are working as a good way to convey site identity.” – Adrienne Porter Felt, Engineering Manager, Google Chrome

How Chrome is Approaching The URL Dilemma

The Chrome team has yet to come up with a concrete plan to achieve its objective, according to Wired. But each person in the team is certain that whatever the outcome of their discussion will be the best solution.

For now the team is throwing around ideas, hoping to catch one that will end the problem with URLs even though it does not seem feasible.

After all, they’re used to facing challenges head on.

“I don’t know what this will look like, because it’s an active discussion in the team right now. But I do know that whatever we propose is going to be controversial. That’s one of the challenges with a really old and open and sprawling platform. Change will be controversial whatever form it takes. But it’s important we do something, because everyone is unsatisfied by URLs. They kind of suck.” – Parisa Tabriz, Director of Engineering, Google Chrome      

Porter Felt said her team will be ready to talk about their plans either in the fall or spring.

It may take Google Chrome some time to complete this major reconstruction that they’re working on. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below or over in our Facebook Group.

Dave Furness

Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.

Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.