“Safe” Websites for “Non-Techies”

You may have wondered why some website addresses start with “http” and some begin with “https”. The short answer is that websites that begin with https encrypt the information between the website visitor and the computer that’s hosting the website. Web browsers (Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) are beginning to flag the http websites with “This website is not secure” warnings in either the address bar or in place of the web page.

Beginning this July, with the rollout of version 68 of Google’s Chrome Browser, Google will list *all* websites still using http as “Not Secure”. Websites that still use http will still be online, but visitors will have to acknowledge that the website they want to visit isn’t “safe” before they’re allowed to access the website. Nobody wants their website to not be “safe”, am I right?

Many web hosts charge from a few dollars to several hundreds of dollars a year for the security certificates (SSL/TLS) that make the encryption possible. Since many websites are not heavy e-commerce websites that processes thousands of dollars every month, not all websites need the guarantees offered by the more expensive certificates.

Note: Some of you are already configured with a security certificate. To find out if you’re affected, just go to your website and look at the address bar. If you have a Green Lock icon and/or https://, you already have https configured for your website.

Note: For more information about security certificates, please see https://security.googleblog.com/2018/02/a-secure-web-is-here-to-stay.html)

Note: This is another “service after the sale” that we will not bill for our current clients. However, if we incur additional costs for the certificates, I will have to pass those costs along to you.