Can the site be secure without HTTPS?

As you know, the security of a site and the information it contains, as well as the security of the information of users which is entered the site by them, is of a great importance and all site owners try to create a safe and secure site in every step of designing a site.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol is one of the most common protocols that sites use to transfer information, but it does not provide high security for the site and the question comes to users’ mind is that whether such sites can be secure or not, or the things that can be done to secure the site, as well as thousands of other questions, some of which we will answer below. Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a protocol that is more secure than the HTTP protocol, and many browsers have declared that sites without HTTPS are not secure, so users who are looking for answers to their questions on the Internet would initially pay attention to the site address and if it doesn’t contain HTTPS, they do not prefer to use it in order to meet their needs, as a result they will look for another site that has high security, because if there is the need of entering their personal information to register on the site, they would prefer not to be worried about their loss of their information, due to the fact that if they choose an unsafe website there will be the possibility of being hacked and all of their information will be stolen.

If you are one of the people who have not used HTTPS yet, it is better to reconsider, and you will come to the conclusion by reading the rest of this article, that sites without this protocol cannot be safe.

The world of hacking has expanded these days, therefore there are lots of hackers who do researches and try to make progress in this field, so that they can easily hack your site and abuse your information, which is why you, as a web designer, must work to increase the security of your site, so that over time you can gain the trust of search engines and increase your site's ranking in the Google search results page, and ultimately many users will be attracted to your site because of its safety.

Can the site be secure without HTTPS?
According to the information we have given you so far, the answer to this question, is definitely no, HTTPS uses Secure Sockets Layer to encrypt all the data which should be transmitted between web servers and web browsers, thus the security increases and information such as user password will not be easily available to hackers.

If you want to reach a high level of site security without using the HTTPS protocol, you have to spend a lot of time and energy, but despite this effort it may not work, and you cannot create a secure site, the use of HTTPS has become very common there days and almost everyone uses this protocol and all the tips that are necessary to be implemented in order to increase the security of the site , as well as optimizing it, so they try their best to achieve a high ranking in Google search results, we will discuss this topic in more detail below.

Tips that make site owners not to design a site without HTTPS:
-” Unsecure website” warning:
From 2017, the Google Chrome web browser has started displaying “unsecured” alerts when a user entered important information on sites which didn’t contain the HTTPS protocol , in 2018, Google Chrome sent this mesغیر مجاز می باشدe after the user logged in to such sites and even when they were not entering their information yet, for this reason, users left such sites and preferred the secure sites to spend their time, which caused site owners not to think of designing a site without using the HTTPS protocol, and follow all the tips to convert their site from HTTP to HTTPS, in order to provide a positive user experience for users.

- HTTPS becomes a factor for site ranking:
As you know, the ranking of a site has a high impact on the success of site owners and there are many factors which are effective in ranking, one of these factors that are considered by search engines and its algorithms is HTTPS, the effect of this factor on the ranking of sites has been proven, and if you want to find out more about this topic, you can do some research, then you will see that all the sites that are shown on the first page of search results, start with an HTTPS URL which confirms the impact of this factor on website ranking.

-The lock icon next to HTTPS in the site address is considered as a sign of standard website:
As you know, sites that use HTTPS are becoming more and more popular among all users and site owners, and almost everyone uses such sites, this statistic shows that, nowadays, people pay more attention to everything and also give great importance to the security of their information, when users see the lock icon, they will come to the conclusion that this site has taken care of the users and has observed the necessary points, so they click on such sites, for example, if you intend to shop online and search for a site that is valid, when there is this lock next to the site address, you will conclude that you have selected the correct site and all your information, such as, bank card number, address, etc., is going to be safe, so you will also recommend the site to others.

In general, the reasons why you should choose the HTTPS protocol:
- You may have just set up a site, and you have a limited budget at the beginning of the way, if this site security is of special importance to you, and you want to achieve a high level of security for your site, despite the low budget, HTTPS can help you, because Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is now for free, and you can use it easily.

- This protocol attracts the trust of users and as we mentioned before, users get a good experience from such sites.

- With the development of this protocol, the speed of the site increases because of using this protocol, and as you know, the speed of the site is an important factor for users, due to the fact that they can get the answers to their questions through fast websites.

- One of the factors that can affect the security of the site and provide the site information to hackers, is the use of public Wi-Fi which will provide a security hole which can be attacked by hackers, at this time, using HTTPS will help you to increase the security of the site while using public Wi-Fi.

- As mentioned before, the use of this protocol is effective in ranking.

All these reasons have caused users and site owners not to choose sites without HTTPS at all.

Important points:
While using HTTPS as a web designer to increase the security of your site, you should keep in mind that site security is very complex and in addition to use this for site security, you should also consider other points in order to be able to create a secure site that protects your information as well as the information entered your website by users, and is not accessible to hackers.

To achieve high security, in addition to using HTTPS, you should pay attention to the following points.

- Pay attention to DDOS attacks and take care of your site by raising your awareness in this field.

- Download your software from reputable sources and update all software regularly, because if you do not follow these tips, your site will be easily hacked and using the HTTPS protocol cannot help you in this case.

- There is a possibility of a POODLE attack due to the vulnerability of one of the updated SSLs, through which the hacker can access the transmitted information.

- BEAST attack, which is caused by SSL vulnerability as in the previous case, the hacker decrypts the traffic between the parts and accesses the information.

Last word:
In general, sites that do not use HTTPS are considered as secure sites and users do not trust them, therefore, site designers always use this protocol and pay attention to the fact that in addition to using this protocol, other points should be taken into consideration to increase the security of the site.