I mean, you could guess. The name even hints at it for anyone aware of the `.net` tld.

That's not a great solution, since many people are barely aware what at url is, but I think it should still be one that you and I (as people who are) use.

Similarly the article is fixed by guessing that google chrome is probably at chrome.google.com (also chrome.com), firefox is probably at firefox.com, cnn is probably at cnn.com, gmail is probably at mail.google.com, gmail.google.com, or gmail.com (actually all 3), hacker news is probably at hackernews.com (oops), etc.

> I mean, you could guess. The name even hints at it for anyone aware of the `.net` tld.

Which also risks ending up on the wrong site (e.g. Steam is not at Steam.com). I'd trust Google to know the correct URL more than my guess.

Steam isn't at steam.com, but there also isn't a phishing site for steam at steam.com, and if there was you can bet that valve would do something about it.

Basically I'm trading Google/Bing and ads known to be malicious, for ICANN/registrars, self interested companies, and a reasonably functional "legal" system. Edit: And less tracking, and faster access to websites.

But what if you guess chrome is at chrome.com, and that turns out to be malware?

Guessing domain names is even worse than Googling.

and using news as a third-level domain is a poor choice: Lynx always thinks I'm trying to open an NNTP connection :(

That .com trick works mostly if you are american going on american websites mostly. You seem to be unaware of other tlds.

Point of interest: Chinese websites are expected to use the .com TLD. China technically has its own TLD, .cn, but using it is not normal.

.com is pronounced 网 wǎng, "net", which doesn't leave much conceptual space for other TLDs.