At least Chrome let you right click the URL field and choose to view full URLs. Firefox has also started messing with the way URLs are displayed and you have to trawl through the about:config settings to stop the insanity.
I don't understand what this is referring to WRT Firefox. In Firefox I'm seeing the full URL right now, and have never not seen a full URL, and have never needed to configure anything. By "insanity" is this just referring to the way that Firefox renders the TLD and 2LD in black and the rest in gray? What about:config setting is this obliquely referencing?
I haven't noticed (I guess I don't visit http sites?), but that's quite different from the behavior the article is describing, where every component except the TLD and 2LD are completely absent.
The Firefox changes came shortly after Chrome started mess with URLs and so it looked like Firefox was going to follow Chrome's lead on this. However, Firefox never really got further than hiding the "http://" protocol, and this can be changed by setting "browser.urlbar.trimURLs" to false.
I remember finding this setting before, for myself and at least half a dozen other people in my life. Not seeing the full URL is something that Mozilla should have fucking understood was something their users want. Firefox is supposed to be the "Good Browser™", which includes technical users configuring the browser for other people in their lives.
Every single goddamn time Firefox tries to bring themselves to being the bottom of the barrel, where "naive users need apply", they alienate their user base and all the other people associated to those users. I know that trying to grab market share seems like an "appease more people in the population", but Mozilla repeatedly seems to forget how much we are evangelical for those who don't even know that Firefox exists. The more they try to dumb down their browser, the more market share they lose. They still haven't learned this, and it completely boggles the mind.
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again… Mozilla makes the wrong choice in trying to dumb down their browser. I could repeat "over and over" another few dozen times. They need a change in management at some level, because we're back to this dumb crap… again, "over and over again".
I find it weird how Chrome threads turn into an attack on Mozilla or rant about Firefox. Firefox does not hide the full URL. Never has done in my experience.
