The latest version of the Chrome browser (version 50), which Google released recently has dropped support for geolocation from “insecure origins”. What Google mean by an insecure origin is any website which does not use HTTPS to encrypt the connection between the browser and the web server.
The impact of this change is that Javascript based geolocation will no longer work via Chrome when it is used in a web page which does not use HTTPS to secure the connection to the web server. This means that the automatic customer geolocation feature which is also used by the ‘My Location’ button in our store locator will no longer work on Chrome unless HTTPS is enabled.
We will be making an update to your Store Locator to automatically detect whether the Chrome web browser and HTTPS are being used and to disable automatic geolocation and remove the ‘My Location’ button if it will not work. Customers will of course still be able to enter their address in the input field to search for their closest location. This change will not affect any other web browsers.
We strongly recommend that you also enable HTTPS on the web page which hosts our store locator as soon as possible to ensure that the geolocation feature remains available to all of your customers.
Note: this change does not affect Chrome on iOS as it uses Apple’s Webkit as its browser engine.
Chrome version 50 release dates
2016-04-13 (Linux, OS X and Windows)
2016-04-20 (iOS)
2016-04-25 (Android)
All customers will be notified of this blog via email today