As a member of the Chrome security team and one of the original instigators for this experiment, yes the whole point is to prevent phishing. The fact is that phishing is one of the most common attack vectors for most people, and the way the URL is currently displayed does very little to protect them. So, we're experimenting with ways of displaying the essential information (origin and TLS state) as clearly as possible, while removing the components that are not security relevant and are currently being abused to trick users.
No one has any intention of diminishing usability or making it hard manipulate URLS. The team working on this is still actively refining things and studying what works and what doesn't. But, phishing is a very big problem, and this change to the omnibox shows real promise in countering the attacks. So, I think we would be remiss in not pursuing the investigation further.
No one has any intention of diminishing usability or making it hard manipulate URLS. The team working on this is still actively refining things and studying what works and what doesn't. But, phishing is a very big problem, and this change to the omnibox shows real promise in countering the attacks. So, I think we would be remiss in not pursuing the investigation further.