Google Chrome to Crack Down on Insecure Mixed Content Downloads

One thing that Google has been focusing on quite a bit recently has involved making the internet a more secure place, and part of this has to do with cracking down on insecure pages that use an HTTP URL as opposed to one that is more secure and has an HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) at the beginning of the web address. This is done so that the average user does not unwittingly end up on a web page that could potentially end up infecting their computer with some kind of malware or virus, the kind of thing that can really impact how efficiently you would be able to surf the internet all in all as well as make it difficult for you to keep your personal data secure.

With all of that being said, simply informing users about the dangers of HTTP unsecured web pages is not enough and this is mainly because of the fact that when it comes to secured pages sometimes the content that you download from these pages is not going to be as secure as you would have initially thought and this makes it risky for you to download in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that Google Chrome is aware of this issue, and it calls downloads that are not secure but come from a secure location “mixed content downloads”. The company will now be cracking down on these downloads as well to further secure the average internet user and prevent any malicious actors from being able to take advantage of the lack of knowledge that these users are dealing with.

"Starting in Chrome 82 (to be released April 2020), Chrome will gradually start warning on, and later blocking, these mixed content downloads.", announced Joe DeBlasio from Chrome Security team, in a post on Chromium Blog. 

This crackdown will start with a warning to Chrome users but Google will gradually start blocking these downloads altogether as well to force website developers to secure the downloads as much as possible before the average user has the chance to access them.



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