Chrome to Begin Marking All HTTP Sites as “Not Secure”
Beginning in July with the release of Chrome 68, Google Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure”. The Chrome browser already displays a green lock icon and “Secure” sign in the URL bar for HTTPS-encrypted websites.
- By Jessica Davis
- Feb 12, 2018
Beginning in July with the release of Chrome 68, Google Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure”. The Chrome browser already displays a green lock icon and “Secure” sign in the URL bar for HTTPS-encrypted websites.
Chrome currently shows a neutral information icon for websites unless they are flagged as insecure or as HTTPS-encrypted. According to a Google blog post, the browser will begin warning users against HTTP sites by flagging them with an extra notification.
"For the past several years, we've moved toward a more secure web by strongly advocating that sites adopt HTTPS encryption," Chrome security product manager Emily Schechter said. "And within the last year, we've also helped users understand that HTTP sites are not secure by gradually marking a larger subset of HTTP pages as 'not secure'."
HTTPS is a secure encryption standard for data in transit, meaning that any data sent from your device to HTTPS-encrypted websites is securely transmitted and can’t be intercepted by an attacker. Google began down-ranking unencrypted sites in search results in 2015 and warned against unencrypted password fields in 2016.
According to Google, 81 of the top 100 sites online use HTTPS by default and a majority of Chrome traffic on Android, Windows, Chrome OS, and Mac is protected.
About the Author
Jessica Davis is the Associate Content Editor for 1105 Media.