Providers understand that consumers in the market for antivirus and cybersecurity software want to be reassured of the robustness of the software they purchase. This is why promotional materials from companies in that particular niche have a tendency to feature imagery of locks and shields. It stands to reason, then, that a browser’s lock icon would be taken to mean that the site concerned was protected. However, it’s not quite as simple as that.
HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, differs from HTTP in that it encrypts vital information communicated with or through a given website. The former was once an exception for specific sites where security was paramount (Netscape introduced SSL 2.0 in February 1995), and Google Chrome’s lock icon is a remnant from that time. HTTPS has been widely adopted now, and while it’s important to know it’s there, it’s more important to be warned by Chrome when a site doesn’t have it rather than to receive an indication when it does.
In May 2023, Google’s Transparency Report noted that 97% of its traffic was HTTPS encrypted, meaning that the lock icon has become largely redundant. As such, a May 2023 Chromium Blog post reported that Chrome 117 would replace the lock icon with “a new ‘tune’ icon — both to emphasize that security should be the default state, and to make site settings more accessible.”
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