While Google Chrome isn’t the only browser available in the market today, given how many people use it, it’s safe to say that many of the changes Google makes to its browser affects the way websites are created/developed. Take for example how Google has started marking websites that use the HTTP protocol as “not secure”.
Unfortunately for hundreds of websites, it seems that the upcoming Chrome 70 update could end up breaking them. According to security researcher Scott Helme (via TechCrunch), he has discovered over 1,000 websites that are still running on older Symantec certifications issued before June 2016. What this means is that come Chrome 70, these websites could be blocked as a result.
We’re also not talking about random and obscure websites either as according to Helme, some of these websites are pretty big ones, such as Citrus, SSRN, the Federal Bank of India, the Tel-Aviv city government, and more. To be fair Google did warn websites about the changes they were going to make about a year ago, but as expected not everyone took the time to get themselves up to date, either due to the fact that they’d rather not pay for these new certificates, or that they were simply unaware.
Note that Chrome 70 won’t block access to these sites outright, but we reckon that the warnings and notifications about them being not secure will probably not sit well with users, who might then decide that they don’t want to use the site anymore.
Filed in . Read more about Chrome, Google, Security and Social Hit.