Google Chrome will no longer display HTTPS and lock signs

Many years ago, Google promoted the migration of websites from plaintext transmission to encrypted transmission through the ultra-high market share of its own browser. Nowadays, encryption protocols are ubiquitous.

Initially, Google Chrome will add a security lock mark to the HTTPS protocol in the address bar. At that time, the HTTPS-related words will be displayed in green to be relatively more obvious.

Later, Google also added a secure text mark on the address bar for encrypted transmission sites, and sites that did not use encrypted transmission protocols would be marked as insecure.

The driving force brought by these measures is unimaginable. Only a few years later, the proportion of encrypted transmission traffic on the entire Internet has exceeded 90% and continues to increase.

Google Chrome hides all the HTTP/WWW prefixes in the address bar. Facts have proved that hiding such prefixes has no obvious effect on security. After a few years, Google Chrome still gave up hiding URL prefixes.

Now Google Chrome is ready to work on the address bar again, the new policy is that the address bar does not display HTTPS and security locks, and it continues to hide the URL WWW prefix.

The security lock symbol becomes a drop-down arrow. If the user needs it, he can click the drop-down arrow to view the website connection information, including the certificate used by the website. This kind of improvement is currently being tested in the Canary version and the development version.

After deleting the security mark, Google Chrome will only display a warning if the user visits a plaintext protocol or an insecure website. I don’t understand the practical significance of this improvement.

If you are interested, you can install the development version of Google Chrome or the Canary version for testing. After installation, you need to go to the experimental option to open the corresponding content.

chrome://flags/#omnibox-updated-connection-security-indicators
Enabled = Enabled
Disabled = Disabled
Default = default value (default is disabled)