As promised, Facebook has started to roll out HTTPS for users in North America.
"As the web evolves, expectations around security change," Alex Rice wrote in a Facebook blogpost last year. "For example, HTTPS -- once a technology used primarily on banking and e-commerce sites -- is now becoming the norm for any web app that stores user information. We feel that HTTPS is an essential option to protect the security of Facebook accounts, and since Apps on Facebook are an important part of the site, support for HTTPS in your app is critical to ensure user security."
Facebook's Security Policy Manager Frederic Wolens told Tech Crunch that HTTPS could possibly slow down the browsing experience of the over one billion people who use the social networking site.
"It is far from a simple task to build out this capability for the more than a billion people that use the site and retain the stability & speed we expect, but we are making progress daily towards this end," Wolens said. "This may slow down connections only slightly, but we have deployed significant performance enhancements to our load balancing infrastructure to mitigate most of the impact of moving to HTTPS, and will be continuing this work as we deploy this feature."
Last year, Facebook provided its users with the ability to experience Facebook entirely over HTTPS.
"You should consider enabling this option if you frequently use Facebook from public Internet access points found at coffee shops, airports, libraries or schools," Rice said. "The option will exist as part of our advanced security features, which you can find in the "Account Security" section of the Account Settings page."
You can know if you are browsing over HTTPS by going to your browser where you type in the address. If you see, "https://www.facebook.com/," then your connection is secure.
Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg announced early last month that the site has over one billion users as of Sept. 14.
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