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In Chrome (though I may have seen similar behavior in other browsers), type in http://www.google.com. You will always be redirected to https://www.google.com. Usually when I do this, I get the good old green lock in the upper left indicating everything is secure. But SOMETIMES I get the the grey lock with the little yellow warning that indicates when you click on it, "However, this page contains other resources which are not secure." It seems to go in runs where I get the good green icon for a while and then I'll get stuck with the grey lock for a while. This behavior is not specific to one website. For instance, bankofamerica.com does the same thing. Does anyone have any idea why this happens?

P.S. It's not simply the standard references to non-https links in the source because using the developer tools all requests are shown to be https except for the initial, redirected request.

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1 Answer 1

It is nothing to worry about most of the time. Many of the web services and applications on the Internet in these days, are not 100% self sufficient and a web page, in today's Internet, is nothing but a combination of many different items from different locations. In order words, because the web is getting closer and closer to be an inseparable part of our social lives, it needs to incorporate many social items as well. Doing so, requires a website to try and retrieve data from different sources, which not all of them are using SSL protocol. This causes that green lock to go gray.

In a simpler language, when a webpage, which is using HTTPS(SSL), tries to incorporate or use some other items (Pictures, scripts, xml or css files, etc.) on other websites or servers, that do not use https, your green lock turns gray. Most of the time there is nothing to worry about, firstly because there is nothing much you can do, and secondly because this usually happens on non-so-highly-sensitive web pages, and you should only worry when it happens on you PayPal or bank account page.

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But why would it give this warning when none of the resources on the page are being delivered over http, which is what I see in the developer console? –  user12861 Aug 30 '13 at 15:10
I think the best would be to check the source code of the webpage. and then search for any occurrences of 'http://', or try to find any access to some unsecured webpages. If it is possible, and not confidential, can you give me the address of the webpage that this happens on? So I can see it for myself? –  Jacob Rabinsun Aug 30 '13 at 15:40
I am also guessing that this might be happening with Google+ account enabled. Is this the case? I mean do you have G+ enabled? Cause if you do, and if google is trying to load some content, well, there is always a possibility that a part of this content is not being transported on a secure layer. (Only if we are talking about Google's home page) –  Jacob Rabinsun Aug 30 '13 at 16:26
The page certainly isn't confidential, it's google's main page (or you can get the same behavior on bankofamerica.com, or twitter.com. If it were as you say and some http links were loading, that would show up in the developer console. –  user12861 Aug 30 '13 at 18:38
What extensions do you have installed on your chrome browser? –  Jacob Rabinsun Aug 30 '13 at 18:47

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