Google Chrome Changes to affect all non-https Websites

Google has been looking at making sure that all websites are secure for a long time and have been reflecting this in the upgrades to the Google Chrome browser on each release.

The use of SSL certification on your web hosting/website giving an HTTPS rather than just an HTTP prefix to your website has always been important if you have been taking customer information, passwords and credit cards on your website but has not been a concern if you are re-directed to a payment provider or simply have forms on your website.

This is changing as Google wants to help users browse safely and now Google Chrome indicates connection security on all websites. Those sites that display HTTP now display an (i) in front of the web address that when clicked will indicate when clicked something along the line of:

"Your connection to this site is not secure - You should not enter any sensitive information on this site (For example passwords and credit cards) because it could be stolen by hackers".

Sometime in January 2017 this will change and you will see
(i) Not Secure http://yourwebaddress.co.uk with the aim to display the following eventually in red:

Your website might not take passwords or credit cards and simply just take email addresses when filling out a contact form, the fact is that does not really matter as the message that visitors will see at the top of the browser is a "BIG RED NOT SECURE" message, indicating to visitors that your site is Not Secure and may determine if you keep a visitor or if they disappear when they hit your home page.

For this reason, I would suggest you take a look at what your site currently shows and then discuss with your web or hosting company getting an SSL in-place to change your HTTP to HTTPS.

Full information available on Google Blog