HTTP or HTTPS?

They both appear before the website's address, and they both go unnoticed in the eyes of the most distracted users, but there's a big difference between a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol connection (HTTP) and a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure connection (HTTPS).

HTTP is a protocol; a rule that allows the computer to exchange information with the server. Without this protocol, computers wouldn’t be able to read the codes that give us access to the page whose address we write in the navigation bar.

The problem is that in WiFi networks HTTP is an insecure connection conducive to fraud. To overcome this flaw, there's HTTPS - a safer protocol, which applies a 'protection layer' – SSL (Secure Sockets Layers) - in the transmission of messages between the computer and the server: the data is encrypted, and the server and the client are authenticated.

HTTPS is not available on all websites, but any page that requires a registration, and therefore a password, must have an HTTPS connection. If it's an e-commerce, it's even more important that this protocol is secure, because the data of users' credit cards and other relevant information are at stake. In the last quarter of 2016, Google Chrome announced that it would begin identifying in the URL bar all links that do not contain the HTTPS protocol and whose pages require user data as 'Not Secure'.

If you often shop online or check your bank account through your bank's website, it's important to check that you're on a secure connection (https://www.example.com) rather than the traditional link (http://www.example.com).

If, on the other hand, you have an e-commerce – and if you do, bear in mind that trust and security are two of the most important factors in the user experience when it comes to online stores – you must undoubtedly acquire the SSL certificate (and renew it annually) to ensure complete confidentiality and trust of the data, both for the end user and for the platform itself.