Address–search unification

In the early days of web browsers implementing built in Internet search, e.g. via Google, this was done by having secondary text field to the right of the address bar. Usually (always?) this one was smaller by default but could be resized. Today however the address bar and the search bar has been unified into one single bar. And in the worst way imaginable. When something is entered into the this bar, the web browser will first classify the entered text into one of three categories: 1) URL, 2) maybe URL, or 3) not URL. In the second case, it till treat the text as an URL and if it's doesn't resolve, treat it as not a URL. Text that is not an URL is sent to a search engine. This means that URL's that are mistyped and text that is pasted by mistake (pasted from the wrong clipboard, or previously copied text that was not successfully replaced with a new text) is sent to a search engine. This means that any web browser that for financial reasons have a default search engine that analyses the user's searches is in practice spyware.

There are three ways to resolve this. The first alternative is to go back to the good old split, which I prefer. The second alternative of course is to not even over this feature. And the third option is require the search to be prefixed with a particular search keypress or text, e.g. how Brave lets (unfortunately it does not force) the user type a colon followed by a letter for selecting the search engine.