Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox will now mark unencrypted connections as ‘not secure’

Image: Christiaan Colen, Flickr

By tech2 News Staff /  27 Jan 2017 , 14:25

Further securing the world wide web are browsers Firefox and Chrome. The two browsers will now mark all HTTP sites as not secure and use a more prominent visual indicator for the same.

The update will be available in Firefox 51 and Chrome 56, both of which must have automatically rolled out to most users by now.

HTTP is the default connection protocol used by most sites. The problem is that the data sent via this method is not secure. This includes login data, passwords, banking information, etc. Basically, data shared on HTTPS connections is encrypted. Data shared on HTTP connections on the other hand, isn’t encrypted.

Firefox will mark HTTP connections with a padlock that has a strike through it, Google Chrome will specifically label the site as ‘Not secure’ in the title bar itself.

Most browsers today do mark a secure connection as such. ArsTechnica, however, points out that browsers would not mark sites that used HTTPS frames within a HTTP page (for, say, login information) as not secure. The updates to Chrome and Firefox ensure this.

While most people are not security-minded enough to check if a site is secured or not, it’s important that we do check for this, particularly on sites that require any kind of personal, payment or login information.

Google Chrome 55 will consume less RAM, promises Google

By tech2 News Staff /  10 Oct 2016 , 16:58

Google Chrome is a notorious resource hog. It’s been known to gobble up all the free RAM on your system and drain your battery at an alarming rate. Come December, and all this is set to change.

Chrome 55, which debuts on 6 December, will reportedly use an updated JavaScript engine,reports CNET. Google says that the updated engine uses much less RAM and that the benefits can amount to 50 percent more free RAM.

As far as most of the web-browsing world is concerned, however, they’d rather be using Chrome than any other browser. There are those who’ll stick to the default browser, be it Safari or Internet Explorer (IE) or even Edge, but those folk are unlikely to care about things like RAM consumption and battery life.

On a side note, using Safari on macOS or Edge on Windows 10 will give you better battery life and consume less RAM on that platform than Chrome. In fact, Opera goes so far as to claim that their browser, in battery saver mode, can knock the socks of any other browser in the battery life department.

That said, Chrome’s newfound frugality should have little impact on your battery life or browsing performance. If you’re on a device that’s struggling for

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