User Problem
I’m including a Google Map on a page where users can sign up for a service. The page is accessed via SSL, and before I included the map, the entire page was transmitted securely. Now, however, browsers complain that portions of the page (the map) are transmitted insecurely. I understand the user information is still secure, but my users probably won’t.
How can I change this page so that the google map is still available and users may still interact with it, but the entire page is delivered via SSL?
Google words ..
Previously, when a Google Map was embedded in an encrypted web page, users would get a pop-up message saying the page included both secure and non-secure content. No one likes pop-up messages and the extra clicks they require
Google Solution
The Google Maps JavaScript API V2, Google Static Maps API, Google Maps API for Flash, and Google Maps API HTTP services can be accessed over a secure (HTTPS) connection by Google Maps API Premier customers. If the Google Maps APIs are used with a free Maps API key on a secure site, the browser may warn the user about non-secure objects on the screen.
Other possible tweaks
The easiest way would be to proxy the connection to Google Maps. Depending on how much the user interacts with google maps, this may be really easy or a little annoying.
You can use an SSL proxy script. I did that with a client’s site which uses the Enterprise License, and the client’s Google representative confirmed for us that it is OK to do it this way. I’m not sure if it is OK to do it with the free license, but I assume it is OK too.
Use Firefox which only shows a warning in the status bar
Have a custom link or button on the page that opens the map in a separate window. In our case the users did not want to see the map all the time. Therefore, I have the link on the relevant page and they can click it to open the map when they wish. They will still see the warning but only when they have to look at the map and not every single time they load the account page.
Implement Yahoo Maps instead, which has a simple querystring-based API to pass a location in, and retrieve an XML document containing a URL to a map image. Users can’t pan/zoom, but it’s a simple compromise, they can click a button to open a full map.
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