Do you often see people google for each and every URL all the time?

[Zbig]

My pet peeve since browsers with unified search/address bar became commonplace is users not typing the Fully Qualified Domain Name / proper URL but just typing the generic name of the service (e.g. "gmail") instead and then letting the browser perform a full-blown web search (in most cases using Google) just to click the first search result on the top that takes them to "gmail.com".

My GF keeps doing that and my attempts at explaining the difference and the risks posed by malicious SEOs promoting a phishing (or otherwise malicious) site to the top of the search results all failed. She doesn't know the difference and she doesn't care. Should I give up and accept that the Internet usage has changed and things like that are just minor technicalities that only bother the borderline autistic nerd types like myself anymore?

[PTR_1275]

What’s even worse is seeing people go to google and typing the whole website into the search bar including the http://www.

[Ian.M]

Unfortunately, the Google search sites, and Chromium based, and other browsers typically work hard to avoid showing you the full URL nowadays.  URLs are for geeks, allegedly confuse users, and direct use of them doesn't permit any opportunity to cram 3rd party advertising down your throat!

Just about all you can do is make sure that any browser you are responsible for has its status bar turned on, and attempt to teach your users to hover on links and check the actual URL displayed in the status bar is as expected.  However that's a thankless task, isn't foolproof due to scripts that rewrite links on click, and will be unlikely to make you popular even if the user in question has already personally lost $1000 by clicking malicious links.  If it isn't absolutely essential to attempt to change user behaviour, don't even try!

[magic]

My GF keeps doing that.
Should I give up?

Yes, definitely dump her

And really, you haven't seen it all until you see somebody clicking the 'home page' button to bring up some start page thingy with a google box on it and type gmail.com into the google box.

[Mr. Scram]

My pet peeve since browsers with unified search/address bar became commonplace is users not typing the Fully Qualified Domain Name / proper URL but just typing the generic name of the service (e.g. "gmail") instead and then letting the browser perform a full-blown web search (in most cases using Google) just to click the first search result on the top that takes them to "gmail.com".

My GF keeps doing that and my attempts at explaining the difference and the risks posed by malicious SEOs promoting a phishing (or otherwise malicious) site to the top of the search results all failed. She doesn't know the difference and she doesn't care. Should I give up and accept that the Internet usage has changed and things like that are just minor technicalities that only bother the borderline autistic nerd types like myself anymore?

Using the FQDN is also a risk as malicious actors claim very similar domain names and host copycat websites or drive-by malware. I'd say using a search engine is a decent way of protecting yourself against that.

[Ranayna]

Yep, that is the reason why i do that myself. If i am not sure about an URL (i.E have bookmarked it) i generally search for it.
There are just too many domain squatters out there.

I do not use the searchbar though. Call it a quirk, call it old fashioned, but i visit the search engine manually.
If ever possible, i try to disable any and all "smarts" that the URL bar has. The default behaviour is so damn annoying, especially when you mistyped and internal URL where a search would not help you anyway and might disclose information.

[SiliconWizard]

Of course for common links you may want to have bookmarks and shortcuts easily accessible.

Otherwise, if you type in some website address without the .com extension in the address bar of any decent web browser, it will try to add the .com automatically and see if it gets a result before handing it to the default search engine. So, it's usually best to use the address bar instead of directly going for the search engine.

Now do as you wish.
But I think search engines collect enough information as it is, without giving them every single web site you're visiting.

[Ranayna]

I have never encountered a browser that automatically tries to add .com.
Each and everyone i have used in the last couple of years has started a search with the term entered in the search bar.
I have just tested this and confirm that behaviour for stock IE and Edge, and a stock copy of Firefox. If i type "example", both go to a search, they are not trying to go to example.com, which does exist.

The prefix www. is something different. Once, browsers did actually add that automatically. I remember the topics in the tech forums back then, since example.com is not neccessarily the same as www.example.com. As far as i know, most browsers have stopped doing that nowadays, and www. has largely become superfluous.

[Mr. Scram]

I have never encountered a browser that automatically tries to add .com.
Each and everyone i have used in the last couple of years has started a search with the term entered in the search bar.
I have just tested this and confirm that behaviour for stock IE and Edge, and a stock copy of Firefox. If i type "example", both go to a search, they are not trying to go to example.com, which does exist.

The prefix www. is something different. Once, browsers did actually add that automatically. I remember the topics in the tech forums back then, since example.com is not neccessarily the same as www.example.com. As far as i know, most browsers have stopped doing that nowadays, and www. has largely become superfluous.

It depends on how the site owner has configured the site. Usually the www address leads to the same page, but not necessarily.

[Ranayna]

I know. That is why browsers quickly stopped doing that back then. This was more than ten years ago
But nowadays, the vast majority of sites has the same index page for non-www than for www.

This may sound silly, but i suspect this may be related to how akward www is pronounced in english. Double u, double u, double u just takes too long to say 

[MrMobodies]

Top picture: I hated that feature and I know it started out with Internet Explorer many years ago where i'd make a mistake with a path to a folder on one of my drives and a web browser would open up searching the mistyped path.

Bottom picture: If I make a mistake in typing a full URL in the old Firefox 22 that I set not to do that, nothing happens just get an error message so can I correct it but now on Chrome the browser is set to do a search of the mistyped urls in the search engine.

It annoyed me so much that now I just double check when I type out URL's.

I remember back then, my customers would search from the address bar that was set to Bing for things like pdf reader or some printer driver but directed them to some dodgy websites, a driver updater thing, some unheard of copy of PDF bundled with adverts that went onto installing other advert supported stuff. I think when searched on Bing to search for the words the they said they typed in it appeared as a recommended/sponsored link at the top of the results.

[Ranayna]

I have not found a way to properly disable the search in Chrome, but there is a hacky way to setup a "Null" custom search engine:
https://superuser.com/questions/354338/force-chrome-to-open-urls-as-urls-instead-of-searching

That still works in current chrome.

For Firefox, you can turn it off in about:config
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1219899

[MrMobodies]

    keyword.enabled = false   <- That was set to on)
    browser.urlbar.oneOffSearches = false

It stopped searching but corrected the htp:///www..

You reminded me of a list I had when installing Firefox and I found it:

Firefox 22 about:config:
browser.search.context.loadInBackground False
extensions.tabutils.menu.context_reloadEvery False
browser.zoom.updateBackgroundTabs False
browser.tabs.onTop False
browser.fixup.alternate.enabled *
keyword.enabled False
browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash
keyword.enabled False
browser.urlbar.trimURLs False
browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled False
browser.download.useToolkitUI False
pdfjs.disabled pref False
browser.urlbar.autofill False
browser.urlbar.autofill.typed False

http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries#Browser.

browser.fixup.alternate.enabled False *

True (default): Try to fix up http://foo to http://(prefix)foo(suffix)
False: Do not second-guess the user

It looks like it works on Firefox 75 see attached picture.


Check out the second attached picture:

Vivaldi (Chrome based), typo   htttp:///www.test    in the search bar and it does nothing.

But if test is typed in the address bar it puts "http://" behind it and with no domain "This site can't be reached... Test's server IP address could not be found...  DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN".

I like that message title. It is clear I find that much better than the one on Firefox for an unresolvable domain:

"Hmm. We're having trouble finding that site." as if it was a human being.
The suggestions at the bottom seem okay though.

[Halcyon]

I have never encountered a browser that automatically tries to add .com.

I know back in the day, Internet Explorer used to do this. If it couldn't resolve something.com it would cycle through .net and other TLDs as well. I haven't seen this for quite some time however.

[rdl]

You can disable search from the address in options, but that doesn't usually work. I think MrMobodies has it right. I'd have to go into about:config to check. I've been copying and modifying the same profile for years. I know it's been used on at least 5 different machines and about 7 different browser installs. It's a miracle it still works.


edit: Yep.

browser.fixup.alternate.enabled   false

[james_s]

I hate that automatic search in the address bar thing. If I want to do a web search I know how to do a web search!

It's still not as annoying as the search tool built into Win10 doing a web search when all I want to do is find a file that is on my local machine, that used to infuriate me on an almost daily basis when I worked at a place that made us use Win10.

[rdl]

The last time I installed Firefox, I noticed they had added a separate thing that would appear and auto-fill as you typed in a search. It's almost as if they try to piss me off by adding more crap. I did finally figure out how to make it go away. Luckily, I don't use Firefox much, only when I need to allow cookies. Easier to start Firefox than it is to reconfigure Pale Moon.

[Ian.M]

One of the things I liked about the old (Mozilla Gecko 3.x engine) K-Meleon browser was that it had separate toolbar buttons for 'goto URL in address box' and  'submit text in address box to a search engine'.

A greater annoyance is consumer broadband routers and even ISPs that replace HTTP 4xx error responses with a redirect to a 'friendly' error page.  Turn that s--t off immediately and if there's no option to do so, replace the router or if you have to, sack your ISP!

[james_s]

One of the things I liked about the old (Mozilla Gecko 3.x engine) K-Meleon browser was that it had separate toolbar buttons for 'goto URL in address box' and  'submit text in address box to a search engine'.

A greater annoyance is consumer broadband routers and even ISPs that replace HTTP 4xx error responses with a redirect to a 'friendly' error page.  Turn that s--t off immediately and if there's no option to do so, replace the router or if you have to, sack your ISP!

I set up a rule in my router that blocks the stupid ISP redirect page. All that nonsense that tries to be helpful is extremely annoying because it doesn't help at all, it adds additional steps I have to take.

Just this morning I was trying to get to the setup page for an access point, I made a typo and it did a web search for the mangled IP address, gah! Just... STOP!!

[Ranayna]

Mind you, what those providers generally do, is "poisoning" DNS.
Their DNS servers will return their "helpful" search page everytime they cannot do a DNS resolution.
If your provider cannot be configured to turn this off (Deutsche Telekom for example allows this), the solutions is relatively simple: Use another DNS Server. If you cannot set one on your router, you can at least do that on each device.

On the other hand, if your provider *really* has the ability to intercept 404 messages from websites, even on HTTPS sites, that would mean they are actively looking at the sites you visit, and if they do that for HTTPS, they are running SSL decryption. In those cases you cannot assume any privacy and should switch provider, or use a VPN if you can.

[steve30]

I've seen plenty of people google things that shouldn't need googling.

The most funny one for me, was when I saw someone do a Bing search for Google, then did a Google search for the site he wanted  .

I occasionally do searches for things which I ought to know, but that's usually because I forgot the exact URL, or can't remember the spelling etc. But normally I either type it in full, or type it in part and select from a list of previously used URLs.

As for browsers adding .com etc automatically, I remember this happening back in the early 2000s. I suspected it was IE, but Halcyon seems to have confirmed this.

I'd never heard of the DNS hijacking until a couple of years ago, when I saw a customer mistype something, and it came up with an TalkTalk branded search page. Apparently TalkTalk like to try and monetise people's typos.