Grey vs Green padlock in address bar - technical difference

Question

What is a technical difference between "grey padlock" and "green padlock" in URL bar in browsers?

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As an example we can take:

Green padlock: Bank of America
Grey padlock: Google Search

Both of them are signed by proper CAs.

So my questions are:

What is a technical difference?
How does it impact my browsingsecurity?
Are there some best practises what shouldn't be done on pages with "grey padlock"?

What OS and browser are you using? Have you looked at other browsers to see if there's commonality? — GdD, Dec 19 '13 at 08:55
I don't think OS or browser does impact on differences in SSL certificates. — boleslaw.smialy, Dec 19 '13 at 08:57

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 17 '17 at 13:21

In Firefox, a grey padlock indicates that the site in question does not use an EV certificate. Sites using EV certificates shows up as a green padlock.

There is mostly no practical difference between the two types of certificates. Both are equally secure from a technical POV. For a more thorough answer about EV certificates, see What are the advantages of EV Certificate?

Grey vs Green padlock in address bar - technical difference

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