Google Chrome had a massive redesign and had a load of revamped and improved features recently with the launch of Google Chrome 69 and now, the Google Chrome 70 is about to roll out starting as soon as October 16 which is merely a week later. The new update will introduce plenty of security features and with that, some 1,000 websites have been listed as potential candidates that will not be entertained on Google Chrome 70.
A year ago, the Cupertino-based search engine giant Google (owned by Alphabet) discovered that a security firm called Symantec had issued security certificates to the websites improperly. This is when Google started sending notices to all the webmasters to get a new certificate for the websites before Chrome 70 could potentially block all the websites with Symantec certificates earlier than June 2016.
It has been almost a year since Google led out the notice about the potential blockage asking website owners to update new certificates for their websites. Recently, Scott Helme, the security researcher, listed at least 1,000 websites listed in the top million websites on Alexa with Symantec certificate issued before June 2016 and that batch includes government websites from India and Tele Aviv among others. In also includes websites like Ferrari and Solidworks, however, many of the websites have updated new security certificates thereby taking a clean chit from getting blocked on Google.
Google will issue security certificates warnings on all websites secured by RapidSSL, GeoTrust, VeriSign, Thawte, and other security firms who had issued certificates before June 2016 along with websites with Symantec certificates. Those who are found with the accused certificates will have to follow blockage which although won’t be direct but in partial form but with too many warnings associated with these sites, it will definitely discourage traffic on these sites.
Google has been doing a lot of stuff to secure the web such as it had removed the ‘www’ portion from the web address on Google Chrome Omnibox, however, the change was reversed after the update received backlash. Moreover, Google is working on replacing web address as a whole, however, we don’t know what could be the alternative to web addresses that allow users to direct to any website on the World Wide Web.
The Chrome 70 will include all the major changes made in Chrome 69 along with additions such as barcode scanning capability, web Bluetooth support, shape detection feature and more. For those websites with Symantec certificate, they must check out for their certificates before October 16.
