When you open up a browser to view a page of a website online, what you’re seeing is the data that was sent with the file transfer protocol from the website to your browser. In recent years, the common mechanism of communication between the two is either HTTP or HTTPS.
HTTP and HTTPS are two of the main methods of file transfer that are common on a website, but not all file transfers are created equal. HTTPS [also known as HTTP over Transport Layer Security (TLS), HTTP over SSL, or HTTP Secure] is the secure version of HTTP, and it’s a widely-used protocol for secure communications online.
With the addition of one letter, from HTTP to HTTPS, “S” does stand for secure. That extra letter gives website users a greater sense of trust and security for websites today. HTTPS secures websites when users are providing sensitive information like credit card numbers or other personal information. The protocol offers multiple layers of data protection including data integrity, encryption, and authentication.
While nothing is definitively secure, HTTPS and its end-to-end encryption has evolved to become like the de facto standard between the two protocols, HTTP and HTTPS. Recently, Google announced that they would be moving everything over to HTTPS because it provides more security than HTTP. Additionally, Google will be marking websites using HTTP as “not secure” starting in July 2018.