BackGoogle to soon replace lock icon in Chrome’s address bar: What it means and how it impacts Google Chrome users
Google says that lock icon is meant to indicate that the network connection is a secure channel between the browser and site and that the network connection cannot be tampered with or eavesdropped on by third parties, but it’s a remnant of an era where HTTPS was uncommon.
PremiumEver noticed the lock icon that appears in the address bar beside the website URL? The icon for long has stood for safety and security of the website that the user is visiting. But, according to Google, that no longer holds true.
In a blog post recently, the tech giant has announced that it will soon remove the lock icon and replace it with a variant of the tune icon which is commonly associated with settings or other controls. The new icon will be more clickable and will not imply ‘trustworthy’, Google says.
Browsers have shown a lock icon when a site loads over HTTPS since the early versions of Netscape in the 1990s. The company says that this is no longer true, and HTTPS is now the norm, not the exception. Therefore, it will be evolving Chrome accordingly.
“The lock icon is meant to indicate that the network connection is a secure channel between the browser and site and that the network connection cannot be tampered with or eavesdropped on by third parties, but it’s a remnant of an era where HTTPS was uncommon," Google says in its blog.
“Despite our best efforts, our research in 2021 showed that only 11% of study participants correctly understood the precise meaning of the lock icon," the company adds.
Google says that this misunderstanding is ‘not harmless’ as nearly all phishing sites use HTTPS, and therefore also display the lock icon.
It states that replacing the lock icon with a neutral indicator will help prevent the misunderstanding that the lock icon is associated with the trustworthiness of a page, and emphasizes that security should be the default state in Chrome. The new icon will also help in making permission controls and additional security information more accessible, while avoiding the misunderstandings that plague the lock icon, Google mentions in the blog.
As announced by the company, the new tune icon will start rolling with Chrome 117 that is expected to release in early September 2023, as part of a general design refresh for desktop platforms.
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