Today, we announce the implementation of HTTPS encryption on Freezenet!
Today, Freezenet is joining the many websites implementing HTTPS (HTTP Secure). This means that you should no longer be seeing a lock with a red line through it whenever you visit our page. Instead, you should be seeing a green lock once the caching issues sort itself out. If you still see mixed content error messages, try performing a hard refresh. In Chrome or Firefox, hold down CTRL and press F5 to perform this.
For us, the implementation of HTTPS has been at the top of our priority list for quite a while now. We wanted to add this layer of security for some time. We had this plan of implementing it and announcing it as a goodwill gesture, but last December, we were somewhat upstaged somewhat by Mozilla’s move to make Firefox mark HTTP websites as not secure. While you might suspect that is the true motivation behind this move, it actually wasn’t. If Mozilla didn’t start making these moves, this implementation would’ve happened anyway. It is just the way the timing worked out.
We would like to thank Dreamhost for their patience as we explored the wonderful world of PuTTY. A rocky start for us understanding the software, but we got through it.
Also, for those who find themselves at the stage of trying to squash as many HTTP URL’s as possible with WordPress, check your CSS file for HTTP links. A lot of documentation out there recommends going through the page code looking for HTTP links, but if your CSS file is posted separately, it won’t necessarily be immediately obvious that background images are being served over HTTP instead of HTTPS.
Also, if you use a recent comments widget, you can bump off all the HTTP links by adding in an additional 5 comments (or however many comments you have on display there). New URLs generated by WordPress will be HTTPS. For some reason, some plugin’s may miss converting widget URLs over to HTTPS. Yes, it’s a hack, but it’s a hack that worked for me.
Since this is freshly implemented, feel free to let us know if there are any additional HTTPS issues. Our tests are now showing HTTPS pages at this stage. This has been tested in Chrome and Firefox.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
