http Vs https ,Which is Best and why?

You may have heard people talking about the security issue when we search for any of website throughout the Web.Just take an example about searching for college (Moodle) and facebook web search ,look at these pictures ,one can understand the difference clearly.

connection is secure(https)

insecure connection(http)

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. It is highly advanced and secure version of HTTP. It uses the port no. 443 for Data Communication. It allows the secure transactions by encrypting the entire communication with SSL. It is a combination of SSL/TLS protocol and HTTP. It provides encrypted and secure identification of a network server.

What is HTTP?

Full form of HTTP is Hypertext Transfer Protocol. HTTP offers set of rules and standards which govern how any information can be transmitted on the World Wide Web. HTTP provides standard rules for web browsers & servers to communicate.

HTTP is an application layer network protocol which is built on top of TCP. HTTP uses Hypertext structured text which establishes the logical link between nodes containing text. It is also known as “stateless protocol” as each command is executed separately, without using reference of previous run command.

HTTP also allows you to create a secure encrypted connection between the server and the browser. It offers the bi-directional security of Data. This helps you to protect potentially sensitive information from being stolen.

In HTTPS protocol SSL transactions are negotiated with the help of key-based encryption algorithm. This key is generally either 40 or 128 bits in strength.

KEY DIFFERENCE

HTTP lacks security mechanism to encrypt the data whereas HTTPS provides SSL or TLS Digital Certificate to secure the communication between server and client.

• HTTP operates at Application Layer whereas HTTPS operates at Transport Layer.
• HTTP by default operates on port 80 whereas HTTPS by default operates on port 443.
• HTTP transfers data in plain text while HTTPS transfers data in cipher text (encrypt text).
• HTTP is fast as compared to HTTPS because HTTPS consumes computation power to encrypt the communication channel.