Apple’s Safari no longer displays the lock icon on its address bar

Partial screenshot of the Safari address bar, showing the URL of Manual do Usuário without the security lock.
Goodbye, HTTPS lock! Image: Manual do Usuário.

Did you notice something different in the image above? Since Safari 18.4, released on March, Apple’s web browser no longer displays the lock icon.

Only the gods know how many times I clicked on that icon — each time accidentally, which opened an annoying popup in the middle of the screen. UI details that enhance quality of life 🙏

WebKit’s justification unfolds in two parts: 87% of all connections are now made over HTTPS, meaning secure connections are the norm; and “the presence of the lock could be creating a false sense of trustworthiness, if users instead believe it’s there to signal the website is trustworthy.”

Firefox, at least up to version 138, still displays the lock icon. Chromium, the base of Google Chrome, hid the lock icon in May 2023.

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