Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS

Lets talk something technical today...Here the question comes what is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS ? Don't know how many are aware of this difference, but worth posting for those who do not know.

You all must be aware of the importance of internet security as this is one of the major concerns of the people doing online transactions. The normal website, say example.com is accessed as http://example.com on the web browser ( Internet explorer, Mozilla, Opera etc) but when the sites get secured the single ‘S’ get added to it like https://example.com . Figures on the blog will show the difference how is it access.

Now, lets discuss what exactly is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.

The MAIN difference between HTTP and HTTPS is, HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol which is just a decorated way of saying it is a Protocol which helps to pass or transmit & receive information between web server & client in short across Internet. And the "S" in HTTPS indicates a ‘Secure’ site. Here, the word ‘Secure’ means a reasonable protection from eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Normally, HTTP(http://) is used when anyone browse the website on the browser, which is NOT at all secure if you are using any e-commerce website or a banking website or a personal data transaction website. In other, if you fill out some form on the web site, anyone like hackers can easily see the information you send across. This is why never ever do any money transaction if the website is not Secured(HTTPS) because your credit card number and debit card number can be hacked by the hacker in a http web site.

But if the URL begins with HTTPS (https://), that basically means your computer is communicating to the website in a secure code that no one can use without permission. Basically HTTPS is a HTTP over SSL i.e Secure Socket Layer which makes the website secure. There are some companies who provide the certificate and key used in HTTPS and called as Certificate Authority(CA). Some of the high ranking Certificate Authority (CA) companies are VERISIGN, GEOTRUST, THAWTE etc. So, whenever you make any website which carries any money transaction then DON’T forget to make is Secure or HTTPS.

I hope this blog made you understand the differences and why this is so important. In future, whenever you use any websites which asks you to enter your credit card information, you should automatically look to see if the web address begins with https://. If it doesn't, then please avoid entering sensitive information like a credit card number or ATM PIN. “ BE CAREFUL !!!”