Late yesterday, this site underwent a minor, but significant, alteration. An account executive for my webhost sent email reminding about something already known: That today, Google would start aggressively designating sites secure or not secure, depending on whether they used https or http, respectively. The former is encrypted, and presumably safer to engage.
For many months, I had strongly considered moving to another host—not for dissatisfaction but to get more benefits while spending as much, or even a little less. But, as I have learned from painful past experience, migrating WordPress installations can go badly. Why take the risk, when everything works just fine? The account executive and I chatted about a pay-yearly discount (my preferred arrangement) to stay put and also purchase of a SSL certificate for encrypting the site. We reached an agreement.
I pay for what’s known as Managed WordPress—the host’s original offering on older servers. Upgrading to a newer option would actually be more costly, take away hosted email, and require the aforementioned risky migration. To my surprise, even being on an older system, the SSL installation was pretty painless and required very little interaction from me. Thank-you, very much.
In some respects, the change is more for my protection and satisfaction than yours. At this time, there is no newsletter subscription or other type of interaction where readers would input personal information—perhaps other than to comment, but there are few of them. But I do log into the site to post, and the credentials are a whole lot less vulnerable to pilfering since the change.
Meanwhile, last month, I switched to Google Pixelbook as my primary PC, which means my browser is Chrome. Who wants to go to their own website and be constantly reminded that it’s not secure? Chrome would scold me, every time.
That said, going https is enabling; perhaps in the future the site will engage readers in new ways without being demanding. Don’t you just loathe popups asking you to sign up for a newsletter or otherwise subscribe? I do and would rather not inflict them upon you.
Photo Credit: Andy Wright