You may wonder: “Why didn’t Google do this in the first place?” The simple answer is speed and cost. When browser traffic is SSL encrypted, it puts more load on your browser, the Website it’s accessing, and overall latency and speed since SSL traffic cannot be compressed and accelerated as easily as HTTP traffic. Add onto that the high cost of SSL certificates which Websites need to install. So offering HTTPS or SSL for free to the 200+ million Gmail users doesn’t come cheap. Alma Whitten, Google Security Software Engineer, stated in his article on https security for web applications: What is HTTPS? Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an encryption method commonly used to secure communication over the Internet (normally in browsers like IE or Firefox.) HTTPS encrypts the network connections and payload between browser and web server. In short, it’s the method Companies use to secure the communication between their website and the end users accessing their site with a browser. So, after all we’ve heard and read, do you feel secure about your email account on Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo! etc.?? Comment Name * Email *
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