Is there any standard for modern browsers showing/hiding the URL protocol within a browser’s URL area/omnibox?

Question

This post is sparked by this recent post on SuperUser as well as this other SuperUser post from 2018 on the same topic.

Basically, some modern web browsers purposefully obfuscate (aka: hide) the URL scheme by default nowadays. While I understand the desire to simplify the web for non-tech user’s, I—as a software developer and systems administrator—find it to be a bit confusing.

Not only is it odd to see one browser display URLs in a different way from other browsers, in all cases, when I copy and paste the URL from a browser to a text file or the Terminal (in macOS) I see the full URL including the URL scheme/protocol.

So is obfuscating the URL scheme/protocol somehow as standardized UX practice for modern browsers? Meaning if I decide to create “Jakescape Navigator 2020” would I have to follow some established formatting for the omnibox/URL area?

Screenshots below of what I am seeing on macOS Mojave (10.14.5).

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^{Chrome 75.0.3770.100 (Official Build) (64-bit)}

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^{Safari 12.1.1 (14607.2.6.1.1)}

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^{Opera 62.0.3331.18}

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^{Firefox 67.0.4 (64-bit)}

Answer 1

As your screen shots have illustrated, there is no standard for how the URL should be displayed in the omnibox. However, some browsers (including Edge and Firefox) hide the http protocol but display the https protocol by default. For Firefox, see the documentation for the browser.urlbar.trimURLs preference for more information.