Comments on: Domain Highlighting – Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) new Security feature

By: Dalliann

Dalliann — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:43:53 +0000

I just upgraded to IE8 today and, after spending forty-five minutes disabling the massive amount of toolbars and options cluttering up the display, decided to do a search about how to disable ‘domain highlighting.’ Apparently, there is no such option. Lovely.

I’ve wasted an hour trying to make this display useable but that irritating address bar is unacceptable. It’s hard to read and doesn’t do me any favors- I’m perfectly capable of reading a domain name without assistance and would greatly appreciate being given the option to do so! Until IE8 provides a disable option for domain highlighting, I’m using Firefox.

And I see that I’m not the only one…

By: mike

mike — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:13:38 +0000

Damn this is annoying. To make matters worse I’ve always found black text on a white background annoying, so the first thing I do when installing windows is to change the default background color to grey (with a slight touch of blue). Now the grey part of the url is all but invisible.

By: software developer

software developer — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:14:19 +0000

…while mousing over the address bar …this feature gets disabled.
Hurray!! now I can always drag the cursor over to the address bar if I have to take a quick (I mean a quick) glance at the page I am on.
This doesnt help a lot either… because I might as well have selected the url to see it in white contrast with blue background.
Just the action of moving the mouse over to the address bar eveytime one has to read it clearly…can drive a sane person crazy.

By: software developer

software developer — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:05:45 +0000

What was the QA team doing in Microsoft while this annoyance was being introduced?

At least allow for the feature to be disabled. I need to be able to look at the entire URL while at work without squinting everytime to see which f*ing page I am working on in my domain.

Thanks but no thanks Microsoft

By: jasonrubik

jasonrubik — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:27:24 +0000

Yes, I too found this website when searching for a method to disable the dumbest thing ever to come out of Seattle.

I’ve seen it around the office on coworkers computers and can’t stand it. Most of them didn’t even realize anything was different. These clueless users are the ones that Microsoft was intending to help out perhaps… However, the dumb ones never look at the Address bar anyways, so what was the point!?!?!

And to have this slip through beta testing and make it to full release is one thing, but to not realize the frustration that it would cause to the “advanced users” (who happen to also be the ones who love to bash Microsoft on forums) and leave out that simple “Disable Domain Highlighting” checkbox is beyond me.

By: Caro

Caro — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:29:17 +0000

I’m glad to know I’m not the only one this annoys to no end!

When IE8 auto-installed on my laptop, I quickly uninstalled it, mostly because I found THIS quite annoying!

But now I’ve got a new computer too, and IE8 is what came with it. So, I don’t believe I can go ‘back’ to IE7 since there’s nothing to go ‘back’ to on this?? (Please tell me if i’m wrong! I’d LOVE to be wrong for once LOL!)

And… it really irritates me.
AND the fact that when I open new tabs, the tabs are COLOURED?! I mean, seriously!! Are Microsoft taking us for IDIOTS?!

*sigh*

I wish I could say I’m getting used to it, but I am not. At all.

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:38:43 +0000

I found this while searching for a way to turn this greying out of the address bar off. It’s really getting on my nerves.

There should be an option called “I’m not an imbecile, I know what a phishing link is, please trust me and allow me to see the address in one colour.”

By: New commenter

New commenter — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:46:57 +0000

Nonetheless, WizGnome, it IS annoying, especially since it’s far less effort to glance at the address bar than to constantly hover your mouse in place (especially since you go back to the grayed-out state the minute you remove it). I’m already quite aware of how domain names work, I know how to avoid phishing, and I don’t really need Microsoft’s help in the matter.

Installing an “off” switch for this add-on would have been simple common sense — let the people who need it keep it, while the rest of us do without. As it is, it’s a little like having a permanently activated “Clippy” (remember Clippy?); it adds little in the way of functionality while irritating a number of long-term users.

Hopefully, Microsoft will fix this soon. Otherwise, I think I’ll be looking into Firefox or Mozilla.

By: Sid

Sid — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:56:56 +0000

Disabling the feature would certainly be a reasonable addition. However, for most of you who are anoyed, please notice that once you click with the mouse and/or put a text cursor into the URL string, the highlighting feature turns off by itself. Hence, there is no issue with not seeing it. The highlighting feature is definitely useful for many people (and most users do not even look at the url and go to web sites by searching in Google or using favorites someone else have saved for them) in that it al least teaches them to be aware that the URL is a dinamic thing. This will also teach some of the developers to make their pages stay in the same domain – I am referring to the cases I noticed myself where I login to e.g., bestbank.com, but after few clicks find myself being working at onlineacces.com/bestbank os something like that.

By: WizGnome

WizGnome — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:27:54 +0000

Ok, so very occasionally it might be useful to easily see what the domain is. But by greying out the rest of the URL so its almost impossible to read is just stupid. I often want to see the rest of the URL – and not have to hover the mouse pointer over it to see it.

if MS want to incorporate stupid features like this, at least give user the means to turn them off. For now I shall be using another browser whenever I can.

By: aMaDeO

aMaDeO — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:15:57 +0000

i had to revert back to IE7 because of this stupid domain highlighting feature which is damn stupid.. nice if u could turn the feature off..

By: Juha

Juha — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:49:11 +0000

Annoying feature!

How can this be in the actual release? Didn’t anybody notice during beta testing that this feature sucks?

And no way to disable this.. WTF!

Think for a moment how would people respond if newspapers would be written like this. It’s tiring for the eye since it’s difficult to read and highlighted word catches your attention.

Waiting for the option to disable this..

By: Bill Gates

Bill Gates — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:45:57 +0000

Domain highlighting sucks. Fix it MS.

By: Krista

Krista — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:05:29 +0000

Not cool MS, NOT COOL! I’ve got OCD to a minor degree, I can’t stand when things don’t match up!! Please get rid of it, for all the crazy people!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:00:27 +0000

Domain highlighting is a great feature for those who wish to use it, but for those of us who don’t want to use it, for those of us who find it simply annoying, we’d really appreciate a way to TURN IT OFF!