Back in the day when you would verbally spell out a website’s URL, you would start with “http”. However these days thanks to increased web security, you might have noticed that many websites now start with “https”, where the “s” marks the website as having a secure connection where its content cannot be tampered with by ISPs or governments (in theory).
Google has been pushing for developers to ensure that their sites have adopted HTTPS and this is something that has been going on for years, but it appears that come the next Google Chrome update (Chrome 68), the browser will start marking non-HTTPS websites as “not secure”.
Like we said Google has been pushing websites to adopt HTTPS for years so we guess it is fair warning. Earlier this year Google had already confirmed their plans to mark non-HTTPS websites as “not secure”, and the next update will see Google put their plan into action. So if you see your favorite website sudden flash the “not secure” message tomorrow, you know why.
Note that only Chrome will notify users of these “not secure” websites and that if you use a different browser such as Microsoft’s Edge, Apple’s Safari, Opera, or Mozilla’s Firefox, your experience might be different.