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HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

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21–30 of 148 posts

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#21
post #5

That was a good extension for a specific time. I stopped using it about 5 years ago when everyone had been pushing HTTPS hard, and Let's Encrypt had become popular. I didn't notice any websites not using HTTPS, so I didn't look back.

http://neverssl.com remains for those badly-setup wifi networks.

Beat me to it. beats the hell out portscanning the subnet at the airport

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#22
I think it still has value. A lot of sites have https but users or resource-fetch from them over http is still not redirected to https.

If the internet is navigable while blocking plain http on your host firewall, then we don't need this. But I do get it takes time and resources to maintain their list.

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do the forums have HTTPS disabled, but they expect you to download executables to run on your computer over HTTP. And, the kicker: they already have a legit HTTPS cert for the entire site: visiting on HTTPS redirects you to HTTP _facepalm_. Never heard of Spine before your comment, but if I found this in the wild I'd assume it was amateur hour and turn back immediately.

A slight correction here, the download of the exe does take place over https. As does buying the software, and signing up to the forums. But everything else doesn't? The software itself is some of the smoothest and most stable I've ever used. And when there's an update within the software that, as far as I'm aware, takes place over https too. But the rest of the site and forums, even when signed in, is http, and I do…

The download itself is over https, but the page where you click the download link is http.

If someone were going to MITM the executable, they can just MITM the download page instead and point the download button to their own server with the bad executable.

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#24
post #22

I think it still has value. A lot of sites have https but users or resource-fetch from them over http is still not redirected to https. If the internet is navigable while blocking plain http on your host firewall, then we don't need this. But I do get it takes time and resources to maintain their list.

The article talks about how to get this HTTPS by default functionality in all major browsers. I don't see how your complaint about not being redirected to HTTPS is relevant with those settings enabled.

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#25

That was a good extension for a specific time. I stopped using it about 5 years ago when everyone had been pushing HTTPS hard, and Let's Encrypt had become popular. I didn't notice any websites not using HTTPS, so I didn't look back.

I've been using HTTPS-only mode on Firefox for many months now. The place where I see HTTP links most often is email tracking links. I'm commonly automatically upgraded to HTTPS and it works but very often there is no HTTPS support at all. Even for sensitive things like password resets that have secret tokens in the URL.

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#27
post #5

That was a good extension for a specific time. I stopped using it about 5 years ago when everyone had been pushing HTTPS hard, and Let's Encrypt had become popular. I didn't notice any websites not using HTTPS, so I didn't look back.

http://neverssl.com remains for those badly-setup wifi networks.

Or alternatively http://httpforever.com/

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#28

That was a good extension for a specific time. I stopped using it about 5 years ago when everyone had been pushing HTTPS hard, and Let's Encrypt had become popular. I didn't notice any websites not using HTTPS, so I didn't look back.

I'm surprised by the number of German websites (.de) I've encountered this year that don't support HTTPS. I think they're all small businesses or personal sites, but still unexpected.

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#29
HTTPS Everywhere being available in browsers as an option is great. HTTPS Everywhere being promoted as something you should have on by default is bad. HTTPS, like much else, relies on incorporated entities as certificate authorities. And that's fine for commercial interactions and if browsers were only for interacting with businesses.

But by a combination of centralization in a few CAs (everyone uses LetsEncrypt now) and browsers shipping HTTPS only we are now entering an age when you can only host a visitable website on the continued temporary whim of some external corporation. LE may be a benign dictator for now, just like dot Org was, but the more people that use it and the more centralized it becomes in all interactions the greater pressures will be put on it re: corruption from within and political attack from without to allow some but not others.

HTTP only is okay. HTTP+HTTPS is great. HTTPS-only is the end of the web for human persons and the beginning of the commercial only web.

Re: HTTPS Everywhere will sunset in January 2023

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian ships with its own signing keys to authenticate the packages that it downloads. They are acting as their own CA. This isn't scalable to the web.

Whether or not it's scalable is orthogonal to the question. A browser would call Debian's repos insecure despite the fact that they are secure by other means. vv: whether it's authenticated by TLS or PGP is literally isomorphic except one is centralized to CAs and one is decentralized with web of trust. That's the only difference.

A web browser would be correct. It is insecure, because the browser could not secure it. Therefore it could be showing data that has been compromised. Just because it is secure when apt pulls the package doesn't magically make the web browser's view of the data secure.

TLS and PGP maybe isomorphic, but the browser only has access to TLS. Therefore things secured by PGP are not secure in a browser, not because there is anything wrong with PGP but because the browser is incapable of checking it.

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