what is the use of https?

Question

I am a beginner in HTTPS technology :(. I have some doubt regarding the HTTPS implementation.

suppose I have a registration form

http://www.sitename         


        

Answer 1

Serving over the https protocol means you are serving encrypted data, that in theory cannot be sniffed because it is not transmitted in plain text. The connection is usually over port 443 and not the typical port 80 for HTTP traffic.

Also SSL provides for a certificate that authenticates you the content server with a third party, such as VeriSign or others.

For a professional site you can buy a certificate to install on your server, or in other cases it may be better to use a self signed certificate, although those will typically display a nasty error in common browsers (which may not be an issue if you only have trusted/trusting users).