Starting from January 2020, mixed content will be blocked in Chrome

The Google Security Team has announced a plan to block mixed content to make browsing HTTPS pages more secure. Mixed content refers to HTTPS pages that load various resources (images, videos, style sheets, scripts) using the HTTP protocol.

Mixed content blocking will begin with the release of Chrome 79 in December 2019. At the moment, the browser is already blocking mixed content (scripts and iframes), however, in version 79, a new parameter will be added to stop this blocking manually for each specific site.

Next phase: Chrome 80 release in January 2020. In this release, all audio and video resources loaded via HTTP will be updated to HTTPS by default. If their loading via HTTPS is not available, Chrome simply blocks them. Images available via HTTP will still be loaded, however Chrome will display “Not Secure” in the address bar.

Final phase: Chrome 81 release in February 2020. Images available via HTTP will be automatically updated to HTTPS. If they cannot be loaded via HTTPS, the images will be blocked.

The purpose of blocking mixed content is to eliminate potential security risks for sites that have already switched to HTTPS.