Google wants everything on the web to be travelling over a secure channel, which is why in the future, Google plans for any unencrypted websites you visit using the Chrome browser to be flagged as insecure, displaying a red ‘x’ with a padlock symbol in the URL bar. With this upcoming change in the Chrome browser, Google makes it clear that the web in the future should all be encrypted, with all sites serving over HTTPS, which is a secure layer on top of the general HTTP web protocol.

Encryption Campaigns

The changes have been welcomed by several companies and organisations, which have been pushing for more encrypted websites as part of a campaign known as ‘Encrypt All The Things’, which consists of promoting more website owners to abandon the traditional yet less secure HTTP protocol and adopt HTTPS instead. This move makes sense to many website owners, as a lot of money is spent on designing websites and buying premium domain names to ensure that the site and brand is more attractive to visitors and potential customers. Website owners who have e-commerce stores in particular are being urged to use HTTPS as it provides extra data security.

Current Status

Currently, Google doesn’t make unencrypted websites so obvious to users, with only an icon of a white page being displayed when the website you are visiting is not secured with HTTPS. When a website is secured, a green padlock will appear in the URL bar. Google Chrome currently uses the red ‘X’ with a padlock symbol, but this will appear when there is something wrong with the HTTPS page which you are trying to access rather than it not being secured.

Benefits of the Plans

Chrome pushing forward on clearer marking for plain HTTP is a use which is incredibly strong and pro-user. Although HTTP is quite common still today, it’s also outright insecure and can present a real danger to users and to the open web. With the new markings of unsecured sites, visitors will be able to tell immediately that the site they are visiting is unsecure. Google is not the only big player on the web who is pushing for more encryption, with both Apple and Mozilla indicating that they want more HTTPS security, and the U.S. government taking action to make sure that all official government website are HTTPS by the end of the year.

How Does This Affect Website Owners?

As a website owner, you are likely to be affected by these changes if your site is not encrypted by HTTPS. Currently, visitors to your site only see a white page icon in the URL bar, which does not look threatening or indicate that anything is wrong. But with the new changes in place, your site will display a red ‘x’ and padlock icon when visited on Chrome, indicating that your site is insecure which could well put visitors off sticking around. To make sure that you don’t experience adverse effects, it’s in your best interest – and the interest of your visitors to change to HTTPS.

This is just one of many steps that we’re likely to see in an effort to make the web more secure.