The day that Google has been warning us about for nearly two years has arrived. Chrome version 68 is rolling out now with a very noticeable new feature. Websites that don’t provide an encrypted connection to the browser are branded with a scarlet “Insecure”, right in the address bar of all pages.

Google’s blog post on the new release explains their reasoning:

When you load a website over plain HTTP, your connection to the site is not encrypted. This means anyone on the network can look at any information going back and forth, or even modify the contents of the site before it gets to you. With HTTPS, your connection to the site is encrypted, so eavesdroppers are locked out, and information (like passwords or credit card info) will be private when sent to the site.

As much as some people hate to admit it, Google is right on this one. Here are just a few of the benefits of providing a secure connection to your site visitors:

Protection against “man in the middle” attacks. Hackers, WiFi hotspots and even ISPs can inject unwanted content into unencrypted web pages. These can be benign, like terms of service or ads, but they can also be malicious, such as phishing attacks disguised as pop up warnings. In any case, your visitors are protected against such attacks when your site is encrypted.

Page load speed. In the past, encrypted pages have suffered a speed penalty, due to the extra connections that had to be made before a page could be loaded. However newer web protocols (communication rules) actually require a secure connection. Web servers using these protocols will deliver secure pages much faster, falling back to slower speeds for unsecure connections.

Identity verification. A certificate guarantees the information a browser is receiving originates at the expected domain. It’s a guarantee that when a user sends sensitive data, it’s being sent to the right place, and not to a malicious third-party.

Visitor trust. Now that everyone using Chrome sees which sites are insecure, there will be even more contrast with those that have implemented secure connections. Even though people may learn to ignore the “insecure” label, there is a reassurance (even if it’s subliminal) that comes with that green padlock icon.

The selling part

If your website has not added a secure connection, Webdancers can help. I make sure that a proper security certificate is installed and that the pages respond correctly without any “mixed content” errors. I add site-wide redirects so that all of the old “http” URLs continue to work, while directing Google to reindex the site with new “https” URLs. To get in touch, just click reply to this email and we’ll see what needs to be done.

Until next week.