Google has many experiments in the pipeline that it toys with before releasing them to the public. A recent one was its attempt to hide extended URLs from the browser’s Omnibox in an effort to decrease social engineering schemes (Not its first attempt). Apparently, always showing the full web address can help shoulder surfers more accurately track your interactions or something. The company also claims that in websites like Gmail where many same document navigations occur, the URL can flash too often. To be honest, I’m not really sure what the point of this was, to begin with – perhaps to simplify the web browser or make it more attractive and less distracting.
