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It's the latter. By only displaying the domain name users are more likely to notice a scam domain name, e.g. the Halifax.co.uk case in the parent blog post.

Thanks for understanding former or latter iquestion which I wrote at once:-)

I am not sure the "security/obscurity" logic applies here.

It's all just GUI change, nothing is really obscured (as in not accessible). It's just more radically highlighted.

I'm not sure you quite understand!

The intent isn't to hide the URL from technical people like scammers... Its to hide it from nontechnical people. It's easier to train your grandparents to look at a shortened URL containing just the domain name, and having them verify that is what they expect - as all the distracting bits of the URL are gone...

(Also - "crackers" refers to a very different group of people....)