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Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

blog.chromium.org

31–40 of 463 posts

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#31
Potential source of frustration: naked domains on http that upgrade to https after redirect to www or some other subdomain. It’s a problem to me now - if I name my naked .org site in GMail it assumes https. At some point I will have to host my own redirection service, just for this one issue.

Side note: it beats me why browsers couldn’t agree a way to specify at least the first redirect in DNS, no web server needed for that part.

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#32
post #13

That makes a lot of sense. HTTPS adoption is now very high[1], and this might push it a little bit further for sites that don't redirect to HTTPS automatically. I've been using Firefox in the experimental HTTPS-only mode, and the web is quite usable without cleartext HTTP. [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview It's not a big change from security perspective though. HTTP requests shouldn't be gettin…

>HTTPS adoption is now very high[1]

I posted this in a separate comment and I will post it again.

https://certbot.eff.org/hosting_providers

HTTPS adoption is hard enough that the wast majority of shared hosting providers haven't automated cert provisioning and are delegating this process to their users.

The push towards forced HTTPS has significant costs, which most people in this filter bubble don't want to honestly discuss.

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#33
post #28

Is there a way to get exactly this new Chrome address bar behavior in Firefox? I.e. I want Firefox to follow plain http links same as before, but if I type in example.com it should expand to https://example.com

Not quite the same, but you can enable HTTPS only navigation and then cleary accept an exception when only HTTP is available.

https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2020/11/17/firefox-83-intr...

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#34
post #13

That makes a lot of sense. HTTPS adoption is now very high[1], and this might push it a little bit further for sites that don't redirect to HTTPS automatically. I've been using Firefox in the experimental HTTPS-only mode, and the web is quite usable without cleartext HTTP. [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview It's not a big change from security perspective though. HTTP requests shouldn't be gettin…

>HTTPS adoption is now very high[1] I posted this in a separate comment and I will post it again. https://certbot.eff.org/hosting_providers HTTPS adoption is hard enough that the wast majority of shared hosting providers haven't automated cert provisioning and are delegating this process to their users. The push towards forced HTTPS has significant costs, which most people in this filter bubble don't want to honestly…

Over 2/3rd of that list was last audited in 2019. A lot can change in 2 years.

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#35
post #28

Is there a way to get exactly this new Chrome address bar behavior in Firefox? I.e. I want Firefox to follow plain http links same as before, but if I type in example.com it should expand to https://example.com

It's not exactly the same thing, but Firefox has HTTPS-only mode you can activate. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#36
post #13

That makes a lot of sense. HTTPS adoption is now very high[1], and this might push it a little bit further for sites that don't redirect to HTTPS automatically. I've been using Firefox in the experimental HTTPS-only mode, and the web is quite usable without cleartext HTTP. [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview It's not a big change from security perspective though. HTTP requests shouldn't be gettin…

>HTTPS adoption is now very high[1] I posted this in a separate comment and I will post it again. https://certbot.eff.org/hosting_providers HTTPS adoption is hard enough that the wast majority of shared hosting providers haven't automated cert provisioning and are delegating this process to their users. The push towards forced HTTPS has significant costs, which most people in this filter bubble don't want to honestly…

This filter bubble are of the very sensible conviction that those hosting providers then need to get their act together or go out of business.

HTTPS is old tech. "Let's Encrypt" is free.

Re: Chrome’s address bar will use https:// by default

#40
post #9

There's no link to more technical detail. What happens when the site I type in the URL bar doesn't support HTTPS? Will it error out? (with a timeout?) Or will it automatically fallback to trying HTTP? (In that case, could a MITM block HTTPS to force the browser to try to downgrade?) EDIT: I see that the article says it will fall back, but Chrome Canary has options in chrome://flags, and it's not clear which option th…

"For sites that don’t yet support HTTPS, Chrome will fall back to HTTP when the HTTPS attempt fails." MITM is still an issue. At some point I hope browsers can switch to "you have to type http:// if you want HTTP", and this is a step in that direction. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

It might still be an issue, but this is still a huge improvement. If the browser is going to pick a protocol on behalf of the user, it ought choose a stronger protocol first.
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