After installing Google Chrome 76, if you feel like something is missing from the address bar you would be correct. This is because Google has decided to once again to hide, or elide, the "www" subdomain and "https://" from the address.

When Chrome 69 was released in September 2018, Google decided to strip the "www" and "m" "trivial subdomains" from the URLs in the address bar. For example, when a user visited www.bleepingcomputer.com, the www would be stripped and displayed as bleepingcomputer.com instead.

These subdomains are classified as "trivial" because Google feels that it is not information that most people need to concern themselves with.

After a large outcry from users saying that www.bleepingcomputer.com and m.bleepingcomputer.com are not the same hostnames as www.bleepingcomputer.com, Google stopped hiding these subdomains.

Google, though, did state that on a later date they would once again hide the "www" subdomain, but would continue to the "m" subdomain.

The later date has arrived

With Chrome 76, Google has once again started to strip the "www" subdomain and "https://" identifier from URLs shown in the address bar.

In a Chrome bug post regarding this issue, product manager Emily Schechter stated that after testing for several months in the Canary, Dev, and Beta channels, they are going to start hiding "https" and "www" in the Chrome omnibox starting in version 76 on desktop and Android.

"The Chrome team values the simplicity, usability, and security of UI surfaces. To make URLs easier to read and understand, and to remove distractions from the registrable domain, we will hide URL components that are irrelevant to most Chrome users. We plan to hide “https” scheme and special-case subdomain “www” in Chrome omnibox on desktop and Android in M76."

The full update from Schechter can be read below:

Now when users browse to websites, the "www" portion of the hostname and "https://" is being stripped in the address bar and only the domain is being shown as illustrated by the images below.

If you wish to view the full hostname, you now need to click twice in the address bar on desktop and once in mobile.

At this time, the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge under development by Microsoft does not elide the "www" subdomain or the https:// indicator. This was tested in the Beta (Version 76.0.182.21), Dev (Version 77.0.230.2), and Canary (Version 77.0.234.0) channels.

BleepingComputer has asked Microsoft if they plan on including this change in Microsoft Edge, but had not heard back at the time of this publication.

Users are not happy with this change

After the previous backlash, it is not surprising to find that many users responded that they are unhappy [1, 2, 3] with this change.

At the time of this writing, none of the replies to Schechter's update have been about seeing this as a positive change.

How to show www and https in Chrome

For users who do not want Chrome to hide "www" or "https://", you have two options. The first, and best method, is to disable the

Method 1: Disable the chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-hide-steady-state-url-scheme-and-subdomains flag

To disable the removal of trivial subdomains you can follow these steps:

Open the Chrome browser and enter chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-hide-steady-state-url-scheme-and-subdomains into the address bar. Then press Enter. Chrome will open a page that shows the "Omnibox UI Hide Steay-State URL Scheme and Trivial Subdomains" setting. Change this settings to Disabled./li> The browser will then display a prompt that you need to relaunch the browser for the setting to take effect. Click on the "Relaunch Now" button and the browser will restart.

Once you relaunch the browser, www and https:// will show again the address bar.

Method 2: Install the Suspicious Site Reporter Extension

Schechter stated you can install Google's Chrome Suspicious Site Reporter extension and Chrome will stop eliding www and https.

This extension allows users to report malicious, scam, and phishing sites to be included in Google SafeBrowsing.

A tweet by Microsoft Edge developer Eric Lawrence shows the code in Chromium that disables the eliding feature when the extension is installed.

TIL (Thanks Emily!) that if you have the Suspicious Site Reporter browser extension enabled, Chrome 76 doesn't hide the "https://www" at the front of the omnibox. pic.twitter.com/EhH7ZywpZd — Eric Lawrence (@ericlaw) July 31, 2019

BleepingComputer has also independently tested the extension and it does not phone home unless you explicitly report a web page.

Update 7/31/19 9:15PM:

This feature has already been rolled out to everyone. I did not see it as I had the omnibox-ui-hide-steady-state-url-scheme-and-subdomains flag disabled.

I have updated the article to include information on using that flag to disable the stripping of trivial domains. Thanks to Bad Packets Report for reminding me.