While Chrome already supports this functionality for users who are signed in to Google: but only when they perform search from the address bar, their queries are sent over HTTPS.
However, beefing up security for its emerging Chrome browser, in a blog post, software engineer Adam Langley said the feature is now available in Chrome version 25, which is presently in the Dev and Beta channels, and the same functionality will be available for users who are not signed in to Google.
“Serving content over SSL provides users with a more secure and private search experience. It helps ensure that evil-minded actors who might intercept people’s internet traffic cannot see their queries,” Langley said.
That is right, from now onwards you would not have to sign-in in order to enjoy the security benefits of SSL encryption. Beginning with the next version of Chrome, searches by anyone will be encrypted using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL), Langley explained in The Chromium Blog.
Langley also said, “Many major sites have adopted serving content over SSL by default, such as Gmail in early 2010, Twitter in February 2012, and Facebook in November 2012. Search has also been moving toward encryption. Google introduced Encrypted Search in May 2010 and made encryption the default for signed-in users starting in October 2011. Firefox announced a switch to SSL for all Google searches in July 2012, and Safari did the same thing in September 2012. Chrome is continuing this trend.”
In fact, Google was experimenting with this feature last month, but could not get the company to comment on the change. Either way, testing appears to be complete and Google is all geared up to roll out the security improvement.
In case you are unaware, having your content over SSL would mean a secure and private search experience. Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a secure communications protocol. Technically, it is not a protocol in itself: it actually consists of the SSL/TLS protocol with an HTTP layer on top.
Perhaps more importantly, it wanted to attract more Chrome users to sign-up to its services in the past. Nevertheless, this is good news for users who do not have enough time to log into Google. “Users should not notice any changes. If anything, their searches will be slightly faster due to Chrome’s implementation of the SPDY protocol, but there should be no other user-visible effect,” says Langley.