this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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What SSL thing?
Google stopped indexing all websites without SSL certificates in July 2018.
For example, darklyrics.com is a website I and many others grew up using as a resource to understanding lyrics. They've stubbornly not gotten an SSL because they transact 0 data beyond band name searches. However, without an SSL, they do not show up in Google search results.
This is one of literally millions of examples. Some more reasonable than others, but it still was a massive blow to the efficacy of their search.
Even if sites do not store user account data, such as passwords, ALL websites, and I mean ALL, handle user data, because merely accessing pages (urls) is user data.
Stubbornness is not a good reason not to setup SSL. Encryption should always be on, all the time, for everything.
And it's not only about user data, it would also expose the website to content spoofing in public wifi, which would for example allow the attacker to inject fishing content in the website.
SSL encrypts the data you're sending but it also ensures that you're communicating only with who you think you are. Without SSL you can't be confident about any of that.
If a website has literally no login system, there's nothing to phish.
There is honestly no reason to use SSL on a static website that has no login system and just displays some content.
IE a static blog or etc, where the only content on the website is just "look at this stuff, okay thank you!"
That's still my point, for example you could inject your own login system "create an account to keep track of your favorite artists, or some new shiny feature". For there you can get people's personal information, potentially a password they use on other services.
An URL is something the general public will trust, if the content can be messed with you repurpose the website's reputation. I took phishing as an example but even my not-so-creative and non-expert brain can think of other things : asking for donations, propaganda, advertising, censorship, ...