Chrome to Mark All HTTP Sites as Not Secure in July

For those companies that haven’t installed HTTPS certificates on their web site because, you know, why bother – Google has just upped the ante a bit.

Starting in July, the Chrome browser will mark all websites that do not use HTTPS by default NOT SECURE.

It used to be that HTTPS certificates were expensive and complicated, but that has gotten a lot simpler and a lot cheaper in the last few years.

Chrome, which leads the way in market share with about 60% of the market, is often the bell weather for other browser makers to follow.

Additionally, even currently, sites that are not HTTPS get their Google search engine page rank lowered, so they appear further down in the Google listings than other sites.

While they have not said this, if history is any indicator, the next move after this release will be to issue a warning to users saying the site they are about to visit is not secure and do you really want to proceed.  They will have to click on a box to get the browser to display the web page.

Our recommendation is that if you have not already made your site AUTOMATICALLY use HTTPS, now it the time to get that done.

Information for this post came from Google’s Blog.

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