What is HTTPS?
HTTPS is HTTP within SSL/TLS. TLS establishes a secure tunnel for bidirectional binary data communications between two hosts (the web server and browser). HTTP (Hypertext Transport Text Protocol) is the communications protocol that the client and server use to talk to each other:
So, think of HTTP as water inside a pipe. The pipe is the TLS encryption and the water is the data. The primary difference between HTTPS and the water analogy is that HTTPS is bidirectional and plumbing isn't.
There are other communication protocols that support TLS, such as web sockets (WSS), email (SMTPS), and FTP (FTPS).
HTTPS advantages
The first, and often only, feature you will think of when someone asks about SSL or HTTPS is encryption. This is a good reason to use HTTPS, but it is not the only reason, and not even the most important reason.
HTTPS gives us three security properties:
- Identity: Certificate proves the server is the real server
- Confidentiality: Only the browser and server can read the...
