Although HTTPS is a standard these days thanks to free SSL providers such as Let’s Encrypt, a lot of websites still use HTTP to serve webpages. In order to provider better security over Internet, Google has decided to step in. The search engine giant has announced that from Chrome 90, HTTPS will be the default in the URL bar.
Shweta Panditrao and Mustafa Emre Acer from Google Chrome team said, “Chrome will now default to HTTPS for most typed navigations that don’t specify a protocol. HTTPS is the more secure and most widely used scheme in Chrome on all major platforms. In addition to being a clear security and privacy improvement, this change improves the initial loading speed of sites that support HTTPS, since Chrome will connect directly to the HTTPS endpoint without needing to be redirected from http:// to https://.”
They continued, “For sites that don’t yet support HTTPS, Chrome will fall back to HTTP when the HTTPS attempt fails (including when there are certificate errors, such as name mismatch or untrusted self-signed certificate, or connection errors, such as DNS resolution failure). This change is rolling out initially on Chrome Desktop and Chrome for Android in version 90, with a release for Chrome on iOS following soon after.”
As it stands, Chrome 90 is scheduled to come out in April. As a result, Chrome users won’t see the changes immediately. If you’re wondering, the browser will fall back to HTTP in case the HTTPS isn’t available.
