Google has released today version 68 of the Chrome browser. It is the first version where Chrome will mark HTTP sites as "Not Secure." We've known about this for quite some time, as Google mentioned that the feature would be included in a future release of the browser. This is the latest step in Google’s push to increase HTTPS adoption, with HTTP sites in Incognito mode marked by the label last October.
Additionally, HTTPS sites won't be marked 'secure' any more. The move is very likely to ruffle some feathers as non-HTTPS site owners will have to deal with panicked end users who suddenly see a big red 'not secure' tag on the website. According to Cloudflare, nearly half of the top 1 million sites do not use or do not redirect users to an HTTPS version, meaning that a large number of users will probably see a "Not Secure" indicator next to most of the sites they visit after they update to Chrome 68.
Chrome 68 also comes with two anti-malvertising features
Malvertising is a portmanteau of malware and advertising. While it's no secret that Google takes in the moolah through ads, there still exist several types of malicious advertisements that are frustrating to deal with (fake Skip Ad button, I'm looking at you). Chrome now blocks elements of a page from redirecting the entire parent page to another URL. The change should block malicious ads from redirecting users to new sites, while still allowing single-sign-on (SSO) login pages or similar technologies to work as intended.
The second feature makes Chrome completely block tab-under behaviour, which is when users click on a link, and a website opens the URL in another tab. It also keeps the old tab alive and uses the old tab to load another URL. We've all encountered this at some point in time, and it's extremely frustrating. Google rolled out a first tab-under blocking mechanism in Chrome 65 but implemented it today. Chrome will show a warning every time it blocks a website trying to duplicate its tab and use one to show ads.
The remaining features are dev-oriented and won't matter much to regular users. You can expect an update to hit your browser the moment your restart it.
