Where’s the Padlock?
We’ve come across this question quite a bit recently.
“I don’t see the security icon when I view the order forms on your site, is it secure?”
A user who wants to confirm that a particular website or online web application connection is secure will look to one place - the place they have always looked. If it’s not there, red flags go up, and rightfully so in today’s environment of phishing schemes and online identity theft.
Upon further investigation we found that all of the customers who asked had one thing in common - they were all using Internet Explorer v7.0. Turns out that the users are getting a secure connection, they just don’t see the padlock icon where they expect it.
It is not that the security icon is gone or missing. It is that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided that moving it in IE7 would be a great thing - never considering that we are creatures of habit.
The familiar “padlock” icon now appears just to the right of the Address Bar in IE7, as shown in the image above. And, just as before, clicking on the security icon will allow you to review the secure certificate details.