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Can we agree to drop the use of "http://www.google.com", and let browsers and email clients auto-generate urls from "//google.com" instead?
Which do you favor for use in print, email and advertising?
Option A (http://)
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http://google.com
http://facebook.com
http://mint.com
http://news.ycombinator.com
http://voice.google.com
Option B (//)
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//google.com
//facebook.com
//mint.com
//news.ycombinator.com
//voice.google.com
Option C ()
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google.com
facebook.com
mint.com
news.ycombinator.com
voice.google.com
Let's see where the community stands. What barriers exist to shortening the syntax for http and https resources to "//url.tld"?
If Hacker News supports the shift, Web 2.0 might just might support the change.
One proposed measure of spectacular success: If Google Mail staff reading this thread devote development time to prefilling the "//google.com" link destination to "http://google.com" when users highlight and link text that reads "//google.com", and promote this as a flexibility feature to its 350 million active users.
(If Google promotes "//link.com" as a secure simplicity feature, we'll save ourselves googols of keystrokes, and enable enhanced textual clarity and reading speed for urls printed in-line in emails and on paper.)