Transparency Report

HTTPS encryption on the web

HTTPS helps keep your browsing safe by securely connecting your browser or app with the websites you visit. HTTPS relies on encryption technology—SSL or TLS—to secure these connections. This report provides data on the status of HTTPS adoption and usage across the web.

Encryption keeps you safe

HTTPS web connections protect against eavesdroppers, man-in-the-middle attacks, and hijackers who attempt to spoof a trusted website. In other words, encryption thwarts interception of your information and ensures the integrity of information that you send and receive. Because older hardware and software often don’t support modern encryption technologies, users of these devices may be more vulnerable to security threats.

Obstacles to encryption

Several technical and political challenges stand in the way of achieving full encryption of all web traffic. For example, certain countries/regions and organizations block or otherwise degrade HTTPS traffic. Some companies and organizations lack the technical resources to implement HTTPS or don’t see it as a priority. At Google, certificate management can be challenging for products like Blogger, where a user’s non-Google domain can be used and may not support HTTPS.

Unencrypted user traffic to Google by device type

Some older devices and operating systems cannot support modern encryption, standards, or protocols. Unfortunately, these devices and operating systems may no longer support software updates and, as a result, may never support encryption.

Encryption keeps you safe

HTTPS web connections protect against eavesdroppers, man-in-the-middle attacks, and hijackers who attempt to spoof a trusted website. In other words, encryption thwarts interception of your information and ensures the integrity of information that you send and receive. Because older hardware and software often don’t support modern encryption technologies, users of these devices may be more vulnerable to security threats.

Obstacles to encryption

Several technical and political challenges stand in the way of achieving full encryption of all web traffic. For example, certain countries/regions and organizations block or otherwise degrade HTTPS traffic. Some companies and organizations lack the technical resources to implement HTTPS or don’t see it as a priority. At Google, certificate management can be challenging for products like Blogger, where a user’s non-Google domain can be used and may not support HTTPS.

Since early 2015, we have been able to measure the prevalence of HTTPS connections thanks to Chrome users who choose to share usage statistics. The graphs below show the growth in HTTPS usage across platforms and countries/regions. Desktop users load more than half of the pages they view over HTTPS and spend two-thirds of their time on HTTPS pages. HTTPS is less prevalent on sites accessed on mobile devices, but there is still an upward trend in encryption usage there.

HTTPS usage in Chrome is growing faster in some countries/regions than others. For example, the prevalence of HTTPS has increased quickly in Russia compared to Japan, which has seen slower growth of HTTPS usage.

Learn about how we select these countries/regions

As of August 2024, charts covering encrypted traffic and requests across Google products have been archived.