Dubya, Dubya, Dubya, Dot...
September 18, 2006 \ 15 CommentsGetting people to stop saying and printing it is a lot harder than removing it from your website. All you have to do is tweak your .htaccess file and you can have all requests to your server forward to a www-less version. For example, people that type in www.fusionfox.com are brought to fusionfox.com without even noticing (unless you're hip to this practice). Here's what you add to your .htaccess file:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^fusionfox.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://fusionfox.com/$1 [R=301]
Be sure to substitute my domain name with yours. This is on a Linux-based, Apache server, so you'll have to check with your host to see if it will work. Let's face it, nobody has time anymore to say "dubya dubya dubya dot," especially people that have to zap-fry their Pop-Tarts since the toaster just isn't fast enough. Let's make the elimination of www part of the Web 2.0 movement.
Copyright 2008, Fusionfox
And I might add, isn't it about time that browsers start hiding the http:// prefix? My mom still gets confused by that every time she sees it. What does it benefit us to see that a website is being served by an http connection? At the very least browsers should give users the option to mask that level of detail.
And for secure sites (https://) browsers seem to indicate the secure connection with an icon somewhere. But still, is that even necessary? Grandma doesn't care about SSL, she just wants to make a purchase and not have her identity stolen.
Yes, hearing people spell this out: "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash... no, forward slash... the one down by the shift key on the right...dubya dubya dubya dot..." is rather nasty. It takes 10 minutes just to get to the domain name.
Good point, Peter.
If we could stop people from saying it, we'd be much better off just like you said. The whole "dubya" part is fairly annoying. The letter is actually pronounced "double-you/ewe" but thanks the laziness in the American culture we seem to have issues in pronouncing things. There's nothing like applying a bit of brains to what you're saying. Rack this up with SaraJoy's comments about fonts and my comments on her post there.
I totally agree.
btw - thanks for the Brian Regan reference ... just envisioning his crazy face was enough to make me laugh.
I also totally agree. I wonder if there is a way to do this with Ruby on Rails, or at least non apache servers. I will look into it.
Good point Clifton. There's a project called no-WWW promoting that. visit no-www.org
And when it comes to http://, i think Firefox should provide an option for hiding it. And if a page is https://, it could show a yellow lock, ensuring the page is secure.
And then theres the always comical sounding "dub-dub-dub". But I agree it needs to go, or at the very least find a way to be more friendly. I think in a lot of instances that using the address bar is the first, and sometimes frustratingly, the last experience new users have with the internet.
As said above, no-www.org is crusading to get rid of the subdomain. I, too have removed the www. from my domain and would like to see the http:// go as well. I never use them; I like that I just have to type in the name or keywords of what I want into Firefox's address bar, and most of the time it takes me where I need to go. I don't even need .coms or .orgs!
(And to add to the list, I've also heard the phrase, "triple-double-yoo dot.")
As Ragdoll said, i like Firefox for those reasons as well. Keywords are easy and convenient, but i think that hiding syntax would be a pain for lots of web developers. I still like to know weather i am getting information from an HTTP server opposed to an FTP server.
You have probably answered this before, but maybe once more ;)
What is the name of that font, which you are using in headings?
Example:
http://fusionfox.com/images/site/postacomment.jpg
http://fusionfox.com/images/site/logo.jpg
Hi, Janne. That's Qurillian. I chose it because it's simple, readable, and has just enough personality. I think it was also on sale, so that probably helped me decide to use it. :)
um. you need to provide a link to the index of the site.
I just found your site today through del.icio.us but I already like it. Plus you're automatically cool for referencing Brian Regan. Anyway, I totally agree; "www" is a thing of the past.
Just stumbled upon this article and site, and I couldn't agree more. I rarely use the www-prefix in common speech, but that might very well be because I'm swedish. People just don't use it as much here.
In any case, nice article, nice site. Love the design.
Most hosts have already preconfigured the www to be optional. You should demand this by your host. I'm tired of striking "w" three times for every webpage I visit..