Secure websites: Do they matter?

[Tsutarja]

These days, having a secure website is very important, and it's probably now to the point where 95-98% of the websites you visit on a daily basis have SSL (secure socket layer) enabled by default. However, sometimes you come across that one website where your web browser prompts you whether or not you want to continue through due to either no certificate being present in the connection, or the certificate is expired.

What's the difference between HTTP and HTTPS, you might ask? With regular the regular HTTP protocol, any data you send through is sent through as unencrypted data (i.e. whatever information you submit through is logged as whatever you submitted it as), whereas with the HTTPS protocol, any data sent through is sent as an array of random digits and numbers that is difficult to decrypt.

With that in mind, how do you feel about SSL? Do you feel that with many, many websites using it now that it's still a safe protocol as it was intended to be? How do you feel about sites that you don't need to submit any sensitive data (such as passwords for bank accounts, social security numbers, etc) to that utilize SSL on their sites: is it necessary, or would it still be fine for the standard HTTP protocol to pass in this instance?

 

[string555]

1. Do you feel that with many, many websites using it now that it's still a safe protocol as it was intended to be?

2. How do you feel about sites that you don't need to submit any sensitive data (such as passwords for bank accounts, social security numbers, etc) to that utilize SSL on their sites: is it necessary, or would it still be fine for the standard HTTP protocol to pass in this instance?

Sorry to dissect your post like that, I just thought it would be easier. :P

1. I think that with any security protocol, the longer it is out there and the more widely it gets used, the more likely that people will find the cracks in it. Looking it up, it's been around since 1994, so it's been out there a good while.

2. I think that if the site involves sending any kind of data from your computer, then it should use https. Nobody needs to be able to see whatever it might be that's coming from your computer, but that's just my opinion.

On that note, on my own computer I have a Firefox add-on called httpseverywhere, even though almost every site seems to use it by default, I prefer to be on the safe side and make sure it switches to https if it can support it.

 

[Tsutarja]

Sorry to dissect your post like that, I just thought it would be easier. :P

No worries :)

For submission of information, I was also thinking along the lines of just making a forum post, but you are absolutely on point with usage of SSL on any type of website requiring entry, because of mechanics down to the basics, such as passwords.