bloggerrized

Facebook Finally Adds HTTPS Support

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-512205" height="" src="http://7.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/facebook_360.jpg" title="facebook_360" width="225" /></div><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><div style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px;"><br /></div><br /></div><br />Facebook<br /> has finally added the ability to access the site via a <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/https" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Secure" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="HTTP Secure">HTTP Secure</a> <br />(HTTPS) connection, which should drastically increase security for <br />users. <br />HTTPS provides a combination of the <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/http" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Hypertext Transfer Protocol">HTTP</a> and <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/transport_layer_security" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Transport Layer Security">SSL</a> protocols, enabling <br /><a class="zem_slink freebase/en/encryption" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Encryption">encrypted</a> communication between your computer and a <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/web_server" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Web server">web server</a>. Without <br />it you’re exposed to sniffing attacks on the network; for example, if <br />you’re using a public <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/wi-fi" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Wi-Fi">Wi-Fi</a> to access Facebook via plain HTTP, someone <br />using the <a href="http://mashable.com/tag/firesheep/">Firesheep</a> add-on for Firefox can easily retrieve your data. HTTPS makes it a lot harder to do that. <br /><br />The feature is available as an option on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php">Account Settings</a> page. If you don’t see it yet, don’t worry; Facebook will be gradually rolling it out over the next couple of weeks. <br /><br /><br /><br /><center><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-512207" height="351" src="http://4.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/facebook_support1.jpg" title="facebook_support" width="640" /><a name="more"></a><br /></center><br />Those who are concerned about online security probably know that it <br />was possible to access Facebook via HTTPS for quite some time now, for <br />example using the <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/06/18/https-everywhere/">HTTPS Everywhere</a> <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/add_on" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Add-on_%28Mozilla%29" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Add-on (Mozilla)">Firefox add-on</a>, but some of Facebook’s features, for example chat and photo uploads, did not work properly over HTTPS. <br /><br />Unfortunately, even Facebook’s implementation of the protocol will <br />not be perfect. “Some Facebook features, including many third-party <br />applications, are not currently supported in HTTPS,” writes Facebook’s <br /><a class="zem_slink freebase/en/alex_rice" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0723339/" rel="imdb nofollow" title="Alex Rice">Alex Rice</a> in a <a href="http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=486790652130">blog post</a> , promising that Facebook is working hard to resolve these issues. <br />Furthermore, if you choose to enable HTTPS, you should know that it will<br /> slow down your Facebook experience, as encrypted pages take longer to <br />load. </div><br /><div class="zemanta-pixie"><br /><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=aefc9085-8f50-4171-a4d1-8ca61df6f7c8" /><span class="zem-script more-related more-info pretty-attribution paragraph-reblog"><script defer="defer" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" type="text/javascript"><br /></script></span></div>

Facebook Finally Adds HTTPS Support

Facebook has finally added the ability to access the site via a HTTP Secure (HTTPS) connection, which should drastically increase security...