Moving to HTTPS from HTTP is a technical process, so while many websites will have moved to HTTPS already others have not yet done so and remain on HTTP. You can learn more about HTTPS on Wikipedia if you’re interested.īecause both Safari and Chrome now use the “Not Secure” text in the URL bar of HTTP pages, it’s likely that more and more webpages will start moving to HTTPS simply to avoid any confusion for site visitors. When a website is using HTTPS properly it means the communication to and from the website is encrypted. HTTPS stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure, and until recently was mostly reserved for websites where encryption matters, like with an online banking website, or anything where submitting sensitive data to and from a web site should be encrypted. You can learn more about HTTP on Wikipedia if interested. By default, HTTP does not encrypt communication to and from the website.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol and has been the standard web protocol since the beginning of the web. Again, this is not reflective of on-device security (ie the iPhone, Mac, iPad, etc is not any less secure, it’s an issue with the website itself). The “Not Secure” message may also be seen if the website has an expired SSL certificate, or an improperly configured SSL certificate, in which case that is an issue with the website itself. By seeing the ‘Not Secure” Safari message on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac you are simply being informed by Safari that the website or webpage being visited is using HTTP rather than HTTPS, or perhaps that HTTPS is misconfigured at some technical level. In other words, the device and website is no more or no less secure than it was before updating the web browser and seeing the “Not Secure” message.

The “Not Secure” message is not an indication of any change in device security. This is also reflected in the URL prefix of a website, for example vs

That ‘Not Secure’ text is simply a notification from Safari that the webpage or website is using HTTP, rather than HTTPS.

Phone you are using an insecure browser