The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced an update to their HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extension. The update adds a “Decentralized SSL Observatory” feature that looks for weaknesses in the encryption of sites that users are visiting. When it detects a security weakness, it alerts users that they are on a site that could leave them exposed to various kinds of tracking or attacks.
HTTPS Everywhere was launched in 2010 as a collaborative effort between the EFF and the Tor Project. It allows users to conduct most of their internet use with the more secure HTTPS protocol, which most website support but is often difficult to use. This update, HTTPS Everywhere 2.0, adds an extra layer of security and gives users access to information about the sites they visit that they would not normally have any way to know.
HTTPS Everywhere 2.0 is available for Mozilla Firefox. A beta version of HTTPS Everywhere is available for Google Chrome. You can download either version here.
Do you have HTTPS Everywhere? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.