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un blog de Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

Mozilla, Google and the Location Bar

Ésta es una publicación antigua, de más de 4 años.
Como tal, puede que ya no corresponda con la opinión del autor o el estado del mundo. Se ofrece como archivo histórico.
Lo sentimos, este no está disponible en español, mostrando en: English.

Lately much discussion was caused by Google’s decision to hide the Location Bar in the next Chrome/Chromium version. Seems like Mozilla wants to follow suit. I believe Location Bar still has its important place in a browser, and would like to offer a better solution for Mozilla.

The Problem

Reasons for Location Bar hiding/removal are those:

  • users do not know how to use it;
  • it takes up valuable vertical space;
  • Google (or any other) search works almost just as well, and users use that instead anyway.

Additional reasons for Google are obvious: more search data – instead of going directly to a website, users will have to actually use Google Search.

The Solution

…is simple. Make a huge and visible, window-centered Location Bar (that can work as a searchbar too) the default homepage in Firefox. This has many benefits:

  • new users will get a nice, visible UI as soon as the browser starts, without loading any page (and exposing any data to Google);
  • power users will get the Location Bar at their fingertips, and won’t lose an important, valued tool.

Moreover, Mozilla will be leading the charge instead of following in Google’s footsteps.