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I think it's pretty funny that on the HN front page right now is a NYTimes article from the company's Google beat reporter about how trying to interview Larry P
by Zikes 11y ago
I think it's pretty funny that on the HN front page right now is a NYTimes article from the company's Google beat reporter about how trying to interview Larry Page is "emasculating" and then this announcement is accompanied by an image "shaming" the NYTimes web site for being unencrypted.
As to the feature itself, I don't think it's a big deal at all. We all know that the average internet denizen doesn't understand HTTPS at all and would just as likely ignore it as anything. The only people that would see and understand this new red X for what it represents would know that it doesn't really matter that the lolcat meme they just downloaded came through an unsecured channel.
- civilian 11y agoI work for a SaaS company, we absolutely have customers who email us complaining about putting credit cards in a page served over http.
- Zikes 11y agoCertainly, and I would be one of them. I'm not saying nobody does care or that nobody should, only that enough people don't care enough to make this "red X of shame" that shameful, really. Chrome and Firefox have both had to take extreme measures for very similar things, such as web sites using expired (or even unvalidated/spoofed) SSL certificates. Google even reported that using a giant red page with warning labels didn't stop people from clicking through!
- civilian 11y agoRight, and I guess I meant to imply that it is some of the unwashed non-elite masses that notice that stuff. Our product is for people who are bad at software and want an easier way to do task X, but they still know to look for the green lock. I don't have strong data but I'd just say-- don't underestimate the web knowledge of people who are mostly making cat pictures.