Google’s Emily Schechter of the Chrome Security Team said on Thursday that starting with Chrome 56, slated to arrive in January 2017, the browser will visually inform users when HTTP sites are not securing the transmission of their credit card information and/or passwords. Google will eventually list all HTTP sites as non-secure, so this is a step in that direction.
Right now, Chrome visually indicates a secured website with a green HTTPS label in the address bar. However, when users visit a non-secure HTTP website, the browser throws up a neutral indicator indicating that the user might be at risk from a non-secure connection. According to Schechter, someone on the network could modify the HTTP website before it reaches the user’s browser.
When Chrome 56 lands next year, the browser will add a “not secure” label to the left of the website’s address in addition to the neutral indicator when the site doesn’t secure the form fields of credit card numbers and passwords.
Eventually all HTTP pages will don the red non-secure triangle that the company currently uses for broken HTTPS websites. However, getting to that point will be gradual, and based on “increasingly stringent criteria.” One step in that direction will be labeling HTTP pages as non-secure when users are browsing the Internet in incognito mode.
If you’re not sure what HTTPS is all about, it’s short for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. That essentially means all data passed between the website and the user’s browser is encrypted so that hackers intercepting the transmission can’t access your credentials. The technology behind this encrypted transmission is called Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, and essentially each side has a “key” to decrypt the data transmission, locking hackers out.
Unfortunately, HTTP sites don’t do this, allowing anyone to “eavesdrop” on the transmission between a webpage and its visitors. Even worse, hackers can modify these websites, after gaining login credentials, to install malware. And although Chrome warns users that they could be at risk in accessing an HTTP website, not all users perceive this warning as a lack of security. Even more, according to Schechter, users can become “blind” to warnings that occur too many times.
“A substantial portion of web traffic has transitioned to HTTPS so far, and HTTPS usage is consistently increasing,” Schechter said. “We recently hit a milestone with more than half of Chrome desktop page loads now served over HTTPS. In addition, since the time we released our HTTPS report in February, 12 more of the top 100 websites have changed their serving default from HTTP to HTTPS.”
Google’s plan for identifying non-secure websites reveals that HTTP sites accessed by Chrome will still work, and that the company has no plans to block these sites within the browser. However, this plan mainly addresses the concerns of websites that have yet to transition to HTTPS, and lists ways sites can grab free and cheap keys (certificates) for setting up a secure connection. A number of set-up guides can be found here as well.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.