While many of you know that after four years of being Thedroidguy I abandoned my Android phone for an iPhone as my daily driver, I was and still am pretty much a Google user. I use Google docs, Google analytics, Google Maps, a Chromebook on occasion and Chrome as my default browser. Actually I typically use multiple browsers so that I can command tab between different browsers, for example, when I’m writing stories.

Google also nailed a fluid browser, mobile browser integration before the other browsers could. Even on iOS I can save links, tabs and other important browser information from my desktop to my mobile devices. There are a lot of real advantages to the Chrome browser.

Well I may end up switching, away from Chrome, or at least staying on the latest version for as long as possible, if they don’t nip a proposed “feature” in the bud.

Last week the latest Canary build of Google Chrome removed one of the most important parts of a web browser, the URL.

The URL has been pretty much a mainstay since browsers first came on the market back in the days of Netscape and Mosaic. The URL shows you where you’re going across the world wide web that we affectionately call the internet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the multi function URL bar, in fact it’s one of my favorite features across Chrome and Safari. I love the ability to type out a url and go straight to which I seek, or popping in just a few words and instead searching. I’m confident I could survive easily enough if the search function was taken out of the bar, but not the URL.

In the latest Canary build the URL is replaced and instead you are to search Google for whatever it is you need. Now of course you still have all of your bookmarks so you can quickly go to your most important saved websites, but now if you see a url on a TV commercial and want to go to the site you need to search first.

Allenpike.com reports that Google’s Paul Irish has come out and said that the change at this point is only an experiment. In this Hacker News post Irish solicits user feedback and posts the way to disable the feature in that Canary build.

Why would Google do this to the URL? Without any official word, using a search every time you want to go somewhere obviously creates more clicks to Google. It can also be said that there is a large set of internet users that already use the web this way; go to google, type something in, select a result. But us diehard users who’ve been on the internet for two decades are familiar with the URL and it’s relevance in the world of the web.

Pike goes on to suggest that the URL is a vital part of maintaining the “web” and linkability portion of the internet. While the world is split on native apps vs mobile web, native apps seem to freeze out linkability while links are still a major part of mobile web. Links are also a major factor in the way website analytics are  calculated.

Pike also makes a point to note that while Google may be moving away from the original version of the web and linkability, Facebook just announced a new platform called Applinks that actually put links between apps into apps. This initiative is being supported by some big names like Dropbox and Pinterest.

Whatever the reasoning is and experiment or not, if the URL goes missing from the next official build of Chrome I’m out, or at least staying on this version for as long as I can.