Google is adding further security to the world wide web by introducing HTTPS for every blogspot domain name.
In an official company blog, Milinda Perera, software engineer based in the tech giant’s security team, said every page will now be encrypted.
Where previously this was an opt-in setting, Google has decided that this type of security is necessary by way of default.
“We’re also adding a new setting called HTTPS Redirect that allows you to opt-in to redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS,” Mr. Perera continued.
“While all blogspot blogs will have an HTTPS version enabled, if you turn on this new setting, all visitors will be redirected to the HTTPS version of your blog at https://<your-blog>.blogspot.com even if they go to http://<your-blog>.blogspot.com.”
When Google first announced in September 2015 that it was offering HTTPS for blogspot, it described the protocol as “cornerstone for internet security”.
Writing at the time, Jo-el van Bergen, a senior software engineer at the company, highlighted two key advantages of HTTPS.
One, it makes it much more difficult for cybercriminals to access and steal information, and two, it helps to ensure that visitors to a page are clicking through to a genuine website.
In March, Google revealed that it had added a new category to its transparency report, which is designed to “monitor the use of HTTPS encryption on all requests sent to its servers”.
This is part of a wider strategy to fully encrypt all of its services and products, which is easier said than done.
For example, barriers to this include certain older hardware and software being unable to support new encryption technologies.
