Importantly, a 'Not Secure' indicator will continue to show on sites without HTTPS support, and the experiment includes an enterprise policy in case organizations want to opt-out. We hope that this experiment will improve the discoverability of critical privacy and security information and controls provided in Page Info, such as site permissions. To try and reduce this confusion, Chrome will run an experiment in M93 that replaces the lock in the address bar with a more neutral entry point to Page Info (example below). In a recent study, we found that only 11% of participants could correctly identify the meaning of the lock icon. In particular, our research indicates that users often associate this icon with a site being trustworthy, when in fact it's only the connection that's secure. The company stated that it is exploring the possibility of replacing the lock icon with a down arrow in Chrome:Īs we approach an HTTPS-first future, we're also re-examining the lock icon that browsers typically show when a site loads over HTTPS.

However, as noted by Google back in July, many users misunderstand this representation and think that the icon indicates that you're connected to a trustworthy website even though that may not necessarily be the case. Many web browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge use a lock icon in the address bar to indicate that you're connected to the website via a secure HTTPS connection.

Microsoft edge icon change