Firefox is about to mark all HTTP pages as unsafe

When the number of websites switches to HTTPS a lot, browsers will soon mark every HTTP page as 'Not Secure' by default.

The current version of Firefox Nightly Edition (version 59) has the option, but if you turn it on, there will be an icon indicating that the current website is not safe. Currently this icon has a slash on the lock - which is used to refer to HTTPS pages.

Firefox is about to mark all HTTP pages as unsafe Picture 1 Firefox is about to mark all HTTP pages as unsafe Picture 1
Red lock and slash icon when loading HTTP page

'It seems that many people have switched to HTTPS,' said Mozilla software engineer Richard Barnes. 'We will soon be preparing to mark the remaining pages as unsafe'.

A hidden setting on Firefox Nightly 59

In the request to add this feature last year, Barnes wrote 'The first step is to add an icon for unsafe pages'. Mozilla approved Barnes and Firefox Nightly's request for a hidden setting named security.insecure_connection_icon, enabled. When this feature is turned on, the browser will display the icon as mentioned above. To enable this feature, go to about: config, find and double-click on it.

Firefox is about to mark all HTTP pages as unsafe Picture 2 Firefox is about to mark all HTTP pages as unsafe Picture 2
Enable notification display when accessing HTTP pages

Since Barnes made a request last year, many websites have switched to HTTPS. According to Let's Encrypt's data, in November 2017, 67% of websites on Firefox used HTTPS while last year was only 45%.

Many security experts and UI designers think that using such alerts for HTTP pages will lead to bad effects, making users familiar and ignoring them. But Barnes said that if many pages turn to HTTPS, there won't be many hit sites, Not Secure.

Currently Chrome and Firefox only alert HTTP pages when users log in or enter credit card information. Each browser also has a different display. Firefox notifies you right on the form frame you are filling in, and Chrome adds Not Secure next to the address bar.

See more: