Google retires ‘http’ URLs
Google’s Chrome browser will no longer include http:// as part of the URL field. In October of 2009, the creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, admitted that the double slash we see in every website address was a mistake, and that if he could go back and do it again, he would remove this double punctuation. Google has apparently acknowledged this revelation by retiring the http://.
When you think about it, you rarely hear the use of ‘http://’ in television, radio, or print media. That’s because it’s basically unnecessary. Search engines like Google and Yahoo usually insert the http:// for you by default. I haven’t typed http:// for years, as using ctrl+enter, shift+enter or ctrl+shift+enter will automatically encapsulate the domain name with the http://and .com, .net, or .org respectively.
Secure or non-standard protocol is where problems could arise. Sceptics of this retirement raise the issue of what if a user needs to specify a secure protocol such as https or ftp. Some users claim they verify a secure connection by visually confirming the https in the browser’s address bar, while others say that practice is a legacy habit, as the Padlock icon confirms a secure connection.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
