Connections More Secure As HTTPS Becomes The Standard Online

Last year saw ups and downs for internet security. We often focus on the “downs” because it’s important to monitor potential threats, but sometimes it’s nice to shift focus onto something more positive. With that in mind, one big “up” for internet security in 2017 was the mass move away from HTTP to HTTPS on an increasing number of websites. In fact, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports, in 2017 we saw the numbers tip to a majority of websites using HTTPS for the first time in internet history.

Before we dive into the numbers, let’s take a quick look at HTTP versus HTTPS. HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. It’s the technology that allows your computer to communicate with servers and bring you around the web. HTTPS is HTTP with an added “S” for “secure.” HTTP is an insecure system, prone to eavesdropping and hijacking. However, HTTPS is encrypted, meaning any data sent through it is more secure from prying eyes.

The EFF reports that February 2017 was the first time that about half the traffic on the web was encrypted with HTTPS. By the end of the year, about 66 percent of traffic on Firefox was encrypted and by mid-December, 91 percent of traffic on Google Chrome boasted the same. They also report that Let’s Encrypt — which is a free, easy-to-use service for encrypting sites — had 28 million certificates at the beginning of 2017 and 100 million by June. By the end of the year, they were boasting 177 million certificates.

Additionally, both Chrome and Firefox started showing “not secure” warnings whenever sites that are still using HTTP instead of HTTPS asked for credit card information. Chrome took it one step further in October by adding the warning to any input field and they plan to on eventually putting the “not secure” warning on any site still using HTTP in the future. (Fair warning, everyone: If you haven’t made the move to HTTPS yet, now is the time to do it!)

All of this means that the internet is moving toward a more secure experience for everyone, on every site — even little ones that might not think they need it. And you can expect more security moving forward as HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) — which redirects all traffic to secure sites as a default — becomes more common. Considering the World Wide Web has been around for almost 28 years, it’s both a little embarrassing and exciting that we’re finally getting to a place where our browsing is at least minimally protected from cyber criminals and spies.

And, of course, people who really care about secure browsing know that Tenta Browser features even more security tools in defense of your online privacy. We offer default private browsing, unlimited built-in VPN, locked browsing data, DNS over TLS, and total encryption - including Tenta Vault, a secure media vault for your encrypted files. We also offer HTTPS Everywhere integrated directly into Tenta Browser, which means you can browse securely even on your mobile devices without needing additional extensions.

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Tenta is a next generation browser designed for privacy and security. Built-in true VPN, full data encryption, video downloader, secure medai vault, HTTPS Everywhere, Tenta DNS, and more.

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