HTTP and HTTPS: What’s the difference?

Both HTTP and HTTPS can be found in your browser’s address bar, but very few people know the difference between them. We explain.

HTTP and HTTPS: Here’s the difference

The internet is based on the exchange of data – and that’s exactly what HTTP and HTTPS are for. Both protocols regulate how your browser communicates with a website. But while HTTP is the unencrypted forefather of the web, HTTPS stands for a modern, secure connection.

• Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP for short, is used to load websites from the server to your web browser. The problem is that the connection is unencrypted. All data, whether search terms, passwords, or form entries, is transmitted in plain text.

• Specific risks associated with HTTP include data interception (sniffing) in public Wi-Fi networks, man-in-the-middle attacks, in which an attacker inserts themselves between you and the website and manipulates or copies data, and session hijacking: In unencrypted sessions, attackers can steal session cookies and impersonate you.

• HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is the secure version of HTTP. It uses SSL/TLS encryption to protect data transmission. The “S” stands for “Secure.”

• HTTPS is now standard for virtually all professional websites. The HTTPS protocol is supported by all browsers and is therefore a security technology that does not need to be installed separately.

• You can recognize an HTTPS page by the fact that the aforementioned lettering appears at the top of the browser’s address bar and by the locked padlock symbol (see image).

How HTTPS works technically

This is how the website standard works:

• Encryption (SSL/TLS): When establishing an HTTPS connection, a TLS handshake is first performed. This involves the browser and server agreeing on a secure method for encrypting the data. The content is then transmitted in such a way that no one can read or modify it.

• Authentication: The server obtains an SSL/TLS certificate from a trusted certification authority (e.g., Let’s Encrypt, DigiCert). Your browser checks whether this certificate is genuine, ensuring that you are really connected to the desired website and not to a fraudulent server.

• Integrity: HTTPS prevents content from being altered in transit. Thanks to checksums (hash functions), the browser can detect whether data has been manipulated. This ensures that the information transmitted arrives unchanged.