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Tag: HTTPS Everywhere

  • EFF Partners With DuckDuckGo, Adopts Its HTTPS Dataset

    EFF Partners With DuckDuckGo, Adopts Its HTTPS Dataset

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is partnering with DuckDuckGo to include the latter’s HTTPS dataset in its HTTPS Everywhere browser extension.

    The EFF and DuckDuckGo are closely aligned in their commitment to protecting user privacy. DuckDuckGo’s privacy browser extension for the desktop, and its standalone privacy browser for iOS, rely on the company’s Smarter Encryption technology.

    Smarter Encryption upgrades a standard unencrypted (HTTP) website connection to an encrypted (HTTPS) connection where possible. Smarter Encryption is more advanced than many competing options, since DuckDuckGo crawls and re-crawls the web to keep its dataset current.

    The EFF is now adopting DuckDuckGo’s Smart Encryption dataset for use in its own HTTPS Everywhere browser extension. Like Smart Encryption, HTTPS Everywhere is designed to help upgrade insecure connections. The EFF’s solution previously used “a crowd-sourced list of encrypted HTTPS versions of websites,” a less efficient and less comprehensive solution than DuckDuckGo’s.

    “DuckDuckGo Smarter Encryption has a list of millions of HTTPS-encrypted websites, generated by continually crawling the web instead of through crowdsourcing, which will give HTTPS Everywhere users more coverage for secure browsing,” said Alexis Hancock, EFF Director of Engineering and manager of HTTPS Everywhere and Certbot web encrypting projects. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with DuckDuckGo as we see HTTPS become the default protocol on the net and contemplate HTTPS Everywhere’s future.”

    “EFFs pioneering work with the HTTPS Everywhere extension took privacy protection in a new and needed direction, seamlessly upgrading people to secure website connections,” said Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo founder and CEO. “We’re delighted that EFF has now entrusted DuckDuckGo to power HTTPS Everywhere going forward, using our next generation Smarter Encryption dataset.”

  • HTTPS Everywhere Updated To Detect Security Holes

    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.