INSIGHTS & NEWS

Chrome will now alert users of unescure websites

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What’s it all about?

Starting this month, Google Chrome will be alerting users that are browsing all HTTP sites with a security warning. Chrome currently marks secure (HTTPS-encrypted) websites with a green padlock icon and the word ‘Secure’ and now the browser will flag websites that don’t have a secure domain. This is something that Google has been attempting to do for a while, although this time they are really making it evident to users that browsing non secure sites is risky business. Considering Chrome controls around 56% of the entire browser market share across the globe, this will definitely have a negative impact on a large amount of websites, as users that may not visit certain websites due to security risks. This will effectively push website owners to encrypt their sites, if they still want ‘love’ from the search engine giant. 

Google has provided the following statistics regarding web traffic to give you a good idea of the ratio of HTTPS protected sites:

  • Over 68% of Chrome traffic on both Android and Windows is now protected;
  • Over 78% of Chrome traffic on both Chrome OS and Mac is now protected;
  • 81 of the top 100 sites on the web use HTTPS by default.

For years, Google have been heading towards a safer and more secure web for everyone, by trying to educate users of the dangers of browsing unencrypted sites. At beginning this month, aligned with the release of Chrome 68, they have made this a reality. While there are a lot of websites that are affected by this, a lot have already adapted to these changes in accordance with Google.

Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS can be tedious and overwhelming in some cases and relatively simple in some cases, depending on the size of your website. Here are some helpful resources for making these changes to a website:

WHAT’S NEXT?

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