Why Should I Care About HTTPS on Facebook (or Other Sites)? [Ask Lifehacker]

Dear Lifehacker,
I’m not an important nerd, but everyone’s talking about switching to HTTPS on Facebook because it’s so a lot better. Why is it better and why should I care?

Sincerely,
Insecure About HTTPS

Dear Insecure,

HTTPS is a significantly more secure version of HTTP, that is the protocol you generally use to load up your webpages (whether you’re aware about it or not). HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, so HTTPS stands for an analogous thing but with Secure on the tip of it. The reason is, as Wikipedia will let you know , HTTPS is ” a mixture of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with the SSL/TLS protocol to offer encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server.”

Why It’s essential to Care

So yeah, you get it: HTTPS provides additional security, but what does that really mean once you’re browsing the net daily? It basically means you’re protecting your private information from those who would like to steal it using readily availably tools like Firesheep . It means while you enter your password or your phone number or anything personal on Facebook-or any other site offering HTTPS-that data can be encrypted as it flies during the great tubes of the web.

Think of it like this: you’re having an individual conversation along with your new boyfriend or girlfriend, and your ex-unbeknownst to you-is several tables over listening to every word. That’s one of these risk HTTP poses, whereas HTTPS can be more like once you and your new romantic interest were speaking a new language that only the two of you understood. For your stalker of an ex, this knowledge would sound like gibberish and s/he wouldn’t get any value from listening if s/he tried. HTTPS is a technique so that it will exchange information with an internet site securely so you don’t must worry about anyone looking to listen in.

Okay, I need HTTPS Instantly!

Good choice! Enabling HTTPS in Facebook is really easy. Just visit your Account Settings page, select Account Security (it’s the third option from the bottom), and you’ll find a checkbox to enable HTTPS under the Secure Browsing header. That’s all you might want to do.

What about everywhere else? Well, HTTPS is enabled by default on most sites that take sensitive information like your credit card number so you’re generally good to head when buying online. Every browser has its own way of representing whether a website is secure, but generally you’ll see a lock icon for your browser’s address bar. There are varying degrees of security, however, since sometimes emails have attachments coming from insecure sites (more info on that here ). If you need HTTPS everywhere, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) aptly named HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension to supply that functionality. In addition they recommend KB SSL Enforcer for Chrome users, but have found that it isn’t implemented as securely (that can be a limitation of the Chrome extension framework).

So that’s HTTPS in a nutshell and why you must start using it as much as possible. Hope that helps!

Love,
Lifehacker

It is easy to contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. It’s also possible to follow him on Twitter and Facebook .

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This post is tagged: account settings, additional security, hypertext transfer protocol, internet site, new boyfriend, romantic interest