Slowly but surely, the internet is becoming more and more secure.
About half of all websites are now encrypted using HTTPS, in a development that the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has called a significant milestone.
Both Google and Mozilla now report that at least 50 percent of websites served by their respective browsers are encrypted with HTTPS, the secure web protocol that helps protect users from tracking and other malicious activity.
The nonprofit EFF and other privacy advocates have been encouraging wider adoption of HTTPS on the web for years, but progress has been relatively slow. Even now, many mainstream websites and services still use the less secure HTTP protocol or don't enable HTTPS for everyone by default.
Even companies like Google, which has been a strong advocate for HTTPS, face challenges implementing the standard across its services. The company said last year that 77 percent of requests to its servers, excluding YouTube, were encrypted with HTTPS.
But the fact that at least half of all internet traffic is now encrypted should be encouraging for the security industry. Websites that use the less secure HTTP protocol leave users exposed to malicious actions such as tracking, eavesdropping and other exploits that can be used to steal personal information.
Firefox, Chrome , and most browsers now instantly display when a website you're viewing is secured with HTTPS, which has helped raise awareness of the issue. Unfortunately, if a website isn't using HTTPS, there's not much you can do, although the EFF makes a browser extension that ensures HTTPS is enabled by default where it's available.
