Daniel 'MaTachi' Jonsson

Tag Archives: https

How to Search Encrypted on Google

Google has a pretty clumsy URL for searching with SSL, like Wikipedia. However, the encrypted version of Google Search is currently only in beta, so it may be the reason behind it. Anyway, here is the URL to it:

To change to your country’s version, replace the last two letters en to something more fitting. In my case sv since I’m from Sweden.

With the Firefox add-on Add to Search Bar you should be able to add an entry for this version to your search bar. And as with all other search fields in Firefox, it’s possible to add a keyword for the search field by right clicking the field and pressing “Add a Keyword for this Search…”.

However, if you care about your privacy, don’t forget to check out DuckDuckGo. Click here to read my short introduction to the search engine.

How to Browse Facebook Encrypted

As far as I know will only the Account Settings page on Facebook encrypt your connection if you haven’t changed the default settings. Not even the login page seems to connect over SSL by default, which seems a bit strange for such a large site. Maybe they don’t really care about the users’ security.

However, on the Account Settings page there is an option below Account security that asks you if you want to browse Facebook on a secure connection. I can’t see a reason to not use it, so I advise you to go in there and update your account. :) I have done it myself on all my accounts, and I haven’t experienced any problems.

The flaw with this is that you have to be logged in to make Facebook realise that you want to use an encrypted connection. Therefore doesn’t the login page use SSL by default, so you have to manually add an s to http in the URL.

By using https will you be protected from applications like FireSheep, even if you are on a unencrypted network. And you will also protect your data from being read by others on the way between you and the server.

How to Use the Encrypted Version of Wikipedia

For long I didn’t know that there even existed an encrypted version of Wikipedia, since you can’t reach it by simply adding an s after http. The regular address that you are used to looks like this:

And the secure address looks like this:

So it’s a bit lot longer and troublesome to access. However, that mustn’t be a problem. If you are using DuckDuckGo as your search engine and has set it to search through SSL, it will automatically change the outgoing Wikipedia links to the encrypted version. If you would like to have the encrypted Wikipedia as an option in the search bar in Firefox, you can add an entry for it with this add-on.

If you are curios about DuckDuckGo, read my short blog post about it: