Last year Google started to push the HTTPS protocol on many of their services which basically meant that users always connected to the https version of the site regardless of their own preference. Before that, https was only an option in a service’s settings. Gmail users for instance were able to enable https for their [...]

Categories: Browsing, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer

Google back in May 2010 enabled https on their core search domain. Users back then were able to access https://www.google.com/ manually for improved security and privacy on the Google Search engine. Google quickly ran into a problem that the company did not anticipate at the time. Companies, organizations and schools began to block the search [...]

Categories: Google

I reviewed one of the first versions of HTTPS Everywhere for the Firefox web browser back in the middle of 2010. The Firefox extension, which forced https connections to a handful of supported web pages, has come a long way since then. The developers today have announced the release of HTTPS Everywhere 1.0 which includes [...]

Categories: Browsing, Firefox

Twitter made an announcement earlier today that they have added an “always use HTTPS” option on the popular messaging website. HTTPS protects the connection to Twitter from third parties that try to eavesdrop on network traffic. A small example: Say you log in via http while sipping on a hot cup of Java in your [...]

Categories: Security, The Web

The Firefox add-on Firesheep has demonstrated the vulnerability of insecure connections with a bang. Users who use an unencrypted connection to access sites and services on public networks may have their information recorded by other users who record the network traffic. To put it in layman terms: You may be vulnerable to this kind of [...]

Categories: Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, Security

The Firefox web browser offers three visual indicators that the active website is using encryption to protect the user’s connection from third parties. A golden padlock in the status bar, the https in the address bar, and the extended favicon area with the company name and green background all indicate that the user is on [...]

Categories: Browsing, Firefox

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the TOR project have launched a new Firefox add-on that switches to encrypted connections whenever possible. The Firefox add-on comes preconfigured with seventeen websites and services from PayPal and Twitter to the New York Times, Facebook or Google Search. Connections to those websites will automatically be switched to the encrypted [...]

Categories: Browsing, Firefox

The introduction of encrypted search at https://www.google.com/ a month ago has increased the privacy of search engine visitors by preventing people from intercepting search terms and results. Encrypting all communication between the client’s computer and Google Search had a few side effects though. It was for one not possible to use all Google services. Google [...]

Categories: Google, Search Engines

Google has just enabled https on their core search domain google.com. Users who want to access the encrypted Google web search can point their browsers to https://www.google.com/ to do so. The technology, which is known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), encrypts the data traffic between the user’s computer and the Internet server they want to [...]

Categories: Google