How to show full URLs in browsers

Operating Systems, Editors, and Tools
1

For a few years browsers have been trimming URLs by default. I mentioned how to override it in Firefox, but now it’s possible in Chrom(e|ium) too: right click on the URL bar and select “Always show full URLs”.

If the URL bar shows this on this forum’s homepage, it isn’t showing the full URL:

forum.codeselfstudy.com

This is the full URL:

https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/

I think it’s a good idea to show the full URLs when doing web development, because URL trimming ends up confusing many people about how URLs work.

To change it in Firefox, type about:config in the address bar. Ignore the warning about the warranty. Search for the setting called browser.urlbar.trimURLs and set it to false.

It looks like it can be fixed in Safari too.

2 Likes
2

I just realized that it doesn’t actually work on Chrome. If you choose “Always show full URLs” it still isn’t the full URL — it will show http://localhost:8080 when you’re really on http://localhost:8080/.

(I only tried Chromium.)