September 8, 2011

Google Redirects Some Chrome Users to the Encrypted Search Interface

Google's encrypted version has all the features of the standard version and Google could redirect users to the more secure interface. You can now search images, use Google Instant, Instant Preview and other features that were missing from Google SSL. The navigation links are still missing and Google Maps doesn't support SSL yet.

A Google employee says that Google is "running an experiment with some percentage of Chrome 14 users where we send them to SSL search. The experience is meant to be completely comparable feature-wise to non-SSL search. It is independent of the Chrome 14 installation." So if you're using Chrome 14 Beta, you might be redirected to Google SSL.



"With Google search over SSL, you can have an end-to-end encrypted search solution between your computer and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party. This provides you with a more secure and private search experience," explains Google. An important downside is the loss of performance, but Chrome uses SPDY for all Google URLs, so SSL pages load a lot faster.

{ Thanks, Libran Lover. }
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12 comments:

  1. przemelekSeptember 8, 2011 at 2:01 AM

    I noticed week ago or so that when I'm searching anything with Chrome I'm moved to https://encrypted.google.com (I'm using 15.0.865.1000 dev-m).
    I was wonder what it is, I observed it both from work (where I'm behind proxy and very often visible for the world as being in US) and from home (visible as Poland).
    Now I know why it happen :-)

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  2. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2011 at 2:42 AM

    I always used the SSL version, and since I found out about the chrome://net-internals/#hsts page, I added it to the hsts table, so anytime I go to google, it redirects me to the encrypted version. I did it to others popular sites, like paypal, twitter, facebook, etc.

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  3. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2011 at 2:48 AM

    On encrypted.google.com is a link "Go to Google.co.uk" but there is no encrypted search option for google.co.uk ! When will that arrive?

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  4. Clommo TrustSeptember 8, 2011 at 3:15 AM

    This is a really nice advantage from google since many of us don`t really knows how our search terms been use by others.

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  5. CarlSeptember 8, 2011 at 6:13 AM

    So, is this the reason I can't access my G-mail page??

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  6. Sert erinSeptember 8, 2011 at 10:14 AM

    i wonder how this ssl search affect search engine position ?? anyone know anything about it?

    would love to know elaborate info on this part...

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  7. Sert erinSeptember 8, 2011 at 10:16 AM

    is it dangerous if people now what we are searching ? yes to some degree... but is it possible without installing any malware??

    isn't it Google do this everyday, that is how they know the search volume for certain keyword in the adword keyword data right??

    seem a little bit contradictory though

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  8. koninosSeptember 9, 2011 at 2:17 AM

    With the encrypted search, will the Keywords statistics keep working?

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  9. AnonymousSeptember 10, 2011 at 12:53 PM

    SSL is ok, but search terms can be seen in url itself.
    So search terms are not protected i guess.
    e.g. "google+ssl" in this url.

    https://encrypted.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&biw=1366&bih=610&source=hp&q=google+ssl&pbx=1&oq=google+ssl&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=2642l6397l0l6834l10l9l0l2l2l1l390l1442l0.1.1.3l5l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=3e82efc6cc141df0

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  10. Alex ChituSeptember 10, 2011 at 1:33 PM

    @Anonymous:

    It's not obvious, but the URL is encrypted and can't be obtained by someone who intercepts your connection or by your ISP. The only thing that's transparent is the domain name (google.com), everything else looks like gibberish if you read the packets using a network sniffer.

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  11. Henry LouisOctober 2, 2011 at 11:52 PM

    This can be one of the greatest advancements if Google can provide this service. It is very important to have secured data at search level. I am quite sure that Google will have to make a lot of investment for this feature. I am thinking that they might be launching this as a Paid Search service.

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  12. Alan @JCU LibraryNovember 21, 2012 at 4:45 AM

    Anything I try to connect to google wise via chrome is redirecting through SSL to the same IP address and hanging (eg reader.google.com goes to https://reader.google.com and nothing displays - the tab won't even show if ctrl page up/down through them. Dumb as. So I'm using firefox instead.

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