This is a setting, in flags (i.e. not in regular settings, the whole section in the ui is marked 'experiments') in the dev/canary builds of the browser. It defaults to off. The article (and even its slightly HN-improved title) is pure ragebait.
The setting will go away, as such things always do.
There are actually tons of Chrome experiments that never launch 100% and have their flag removed. They are experiments for a reason. This lets the Chrome team iterate on things and try it out.
They don't 'always do' and the article is still flagworthy ragebait. There are dog farts that serve intellectual curiosity than this type of thing.
I've revised the title to reflect this a little better. The discussion indicates community interest in the topic that maybe exceeds the impact of this particular story, but it's genuine interest, and I don't think it's just rage.
While title is ragebait for sure, Google intent to eliminate URL and replace it with "something better" was clearly stated more than year ago. This article tells us they didn't give up on their efforts.