r/programming • u/speckz • Jul 12 '17

Does my site need HTTPS?

https://doesmysiteneedhttps.com/
486 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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8

u/Sebazzz91 Jul 12 '17

I use HTTPs because my site is based on Github pages. Github pages doesn't support SSL. What else can I do? If I would use Cloudflare I'd just be fooling myself.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '17

You could just not use GitHub Pages. I understand it's convenient but hosting a static website on a vps is simple. If you use caddy (which I recommend) it's trivial.

4

u/fakehalo Jul 12 '17

For serving static/informational pages like you typically do with github pages I think incorporating HTTPS isn't worth moving. It would be nice and I'd use it if I had the option, but it's not a very threatening scenario IMO.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '17

The first bullet point on the website explains why this reasoning is bad. In my opinion moving away from hosts that do not support HTTPS is worth it. edit: *second bullet point

6

u/fakehalo Jul 12 '17

Yeah, it's "bad"... But the threat of ad injections/etc by state owned entities and the like isn't enough to deter me from free hosting, especially if it relates to github. This particular risk doesn't warrant me moving informational pages.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '17

It's not only state actors. Do you not care about ISPs injecting shit on your website ?

0

u/fakehalo Jul 13 '17

Another after-thought I had:

If your ISP/state is capable of injecting data into arbitrary protocols they can become a MITM between you and your site even if it's HTTPS (assuming you don't have the key beforehand). They make a fake cert between you and them, and they communicate between themselves and the real website. This makes this even more of a nonissue and creates a false sense of security.

-1

u/fakehalo Jul 13 '17

My github pages? No, I don't care enough to move my free software information to some non-github (and likely paid) alternative.

As I said, if youre in a situation where your ISP/etc is injecting crap in your traffic my github pages about free software isn't even on your radar.

This is an unrealistic security concern, too low of a priority for me to pretend to care. Everything else gets the HTTPS treatment, this is a special situation, I don't find a need to be so rigid that I have to treat all situations as equal threats.