Question

I either dreamt about chrome (dev channel) implementing a way to update the address bar via javascript (the path, not domain) without reloading the page or they really have done this.

However, I can’t find the article I think I read.

Am I crazy or is there a way to do this (in Chrome)?

p.s. I’m not talking about window.location.hash, et al. If the above exists the answer to this question will be untrue.

Answer 1

You can now do this in most “modern” browsers!

Here is the original article I read (posted July 10, 2010): HTML5: Changing the browser-URL without refreshing page.

For a more in-depth look into pushState/replaceState/popstate (aka the HTML5 History API) see the MDN docs.

TL;DR, you can do this:

window.history.pushState("object or string", "Title", "/new-url");

See my answer to Modify the URL without reloading the page for a basic how-to.