There is a technology that encrypts your internet traffic. It’s called SSL and it prevents third parties from snooping on what you submit on web pages – passwords and other data. If the website address you’re visiting begins with https, the site is SSL-enabled. Your browser will probably also show a padlock icon near the address.
I must admit I never quite got the hang of how it works. Not the encryption itself, but also not the creation, nor the nature, of those certificates that apparently are an integral part of the SSL technology. You need one for the website you want to enable SSL for, and they are something you have to pay someone for. That’s my vague conception.
Until I found out, just now, that my go-to web host NearlyFreeSpeech (NFS) thas a one-line command that just does all that for you. That there is a project called Let’s Encrypt that (somehow) provides certificates for free, and NFS cooked up a script that sets it all up automatically. I literally ran the command and then it worked.
My conception about SSL is as vague as before, but at least I know it can also be really very easy.
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