What is SSL and how does it relate to HTTPS?

Question

What is SSL and how does it relate to HTTPS?

Answer 1

SSL is the secure socket layer, a cryptographic protocol to encrypt network traffic. The most recent version of SSL is version 3, which fixed some known issues in SSLv2. HTTPS is HTTP over SSL... or HTTP over TLS.

TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the successor to SSLv3 and is largely replacing SSLv3 as the default HTTPS protocol in web browsers and servers.

As a side note, HTTPS usually listens on port 443, rather than port 80.

Answer 2

SSL is a protocol for secure tunneling or encrypting network connections at the application level.

HTTPS is just HTTP used over SSL.