Chrome announced that they will soon change the Chrome browser from the lock icon that indicates a secure HTTPS connection and introduce a more neutral icon that they believe will provide a better user experience.
The reason for doing this is based on research showing that the current lock icon is unintentionally misleading and poses a security risk.
Why is the HTTPS lock icon disappearing?
The padlock icon is an artifact of a time when secure connections were the exception, not the norm.
Users could count on the green chain icon to remind them that a connection was secure.
It used to be understood that only financial and e-commerce sites required a secure connection, and that non-transactional sites did not need to have secure connections.
But old attitudes changed when Google and other companies began encouraging publishers to transition to secure connections to improve user privacy and security.
Eventually, Google went so far as to make the secure HTTPS connection a ranking factor, which motivated the naysayers who still insisted that HTTPS made no sense for non-ecommerce sites.
Chrome’s announcement explained:
“HTTPS was originally so rare that at one point Internet Explorer popped up an alert to notify users that the connection was protected by HTTPS, reminiscent of the ‘Everything’s OK’ alarm from The Simpsons. When HTTPS was rare , the lock icon drew attention to the additional protections provided by HTTPS.
Today, that’s no longer true, and HTTPS is the norm, not the exception, and we’ve been evolving Chrome accordingly.”
The lock icon is misleading
It may seem counterintuitive, but Google’s research revealed that the lock icon lulls users into a false sense of security.
The lock icon does not mean that a site is safe. It just means that the connection is made using a secure protocol.
Users incorrectly assume that the lock icon means the site is safe and therefore automatically trust the site they are visiting.
This is a potentially harmful perception because phishing and malware sites often display the lock icon.
Google research shows that consumers continue to associate the padlock icon with security.
“We redesigned the lock icon in 2016 after our research showed that many users didn’t understand what the icon was conveying.
Despite our best efforts, our research in 2021 showed that only 11% of study participants correctly understood the precise meaning of the padlock icon.
This misunderstanding is not harmless: almost all phishing sites use HTTPS and therefore also display the lock icon.
Misunderstandings are so widespread that many organizations, including the FBI, publish explicit guidance that the padlock icon is not an indicator of website security.”
Lock icon Emphasis
Chrome has been in the process of de-emphasizing the lock icon for the past five years, starting in 2018 when they proposed changing the icon.
There used to be a prominent word, Secure, written in green.
The proposal was to remove the word.
Here’s a screenshot from the Chrome blog post:
The removal of the lock icon can be seen as part of the natural evolution of the web and what users need.
New HTTPS Tune icon
Google is updating the HTTPS icon to more accurately communicate a website’s HTTPS status as secure, but without inadvertently implying security.
The new icon is what is known as the melody icon.
Google Font shows these as examples of tuning icons:
And this is the new icon that Chrome will include:
Chrome’s statement explained the reasons for choosing a tuning icon:
“We think the melody icon:
Does not imply “reliable” More obviously clickable Commonly associated with settings or other controls”
Chrome will continue to alert users when there is an insecure connection.
The redesigned icon will debut in Chrome 117, currently scheduled for September 2023.
Chrome announced that the change is scheduled for both the desktop and Android versions.
They’re going to remove the icon entirely from the iOS version of Chrome because it’s untouchable.
Read Chrome’s official announcement:
Featured image by Shutterstock/Orange Vectors
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