Internet giant Google is going to be getting really serious about sites that do not use encryption in the very near future. The next version of Google’s Chrome browser (version 56) is due to be released in early 2017, and it will take a bold step in trying to get site owners to secure their websites.

At the moment if you visit a site that is not using encryption, you don’t notice anything unusual, but with new release, Google are going to be presenting a warning message to users which looks like this:

This message will appear in the URL bar where you type the website address in the browser. You’ll notice that Chrome will now start to warn users of websites that are not encrypted that their connection is ‘Not secure’. The reason for this is that non-secure connections, which use HTTP are prone to being intercepted by hackers, whereas secure connections, which use HTTPS, are not. Google is trying to push the security agenda, and as the owner of the most popular browser in the world, it can easily do this.

If your site is not shown using HTTPS, then you really do need to take action as soon as possible. If the most widely used browser is going to be warning your users about safety, then this is not something that you want. Remember, that you’ve just read this post and so know a great deal more than 99.9% of the world about what the “Not secure” message means. Most of your users will just think that your site is not to be trusted and will click the back button and move on.

Thankfully it’s relatively easy with most hosting companies to secure your website. You can either purchase an SSL certificate from the likes of DigiCert or Comodo, or you can explore whether you can use a free solution such as Let’s Encrypt.

If you would like to get some help fixing this problem on your site, then please contact us and we’ll get you fixed up.