Encrypted Google Search Coming Soon

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We’ve seen Google add a default layer of security to Gmail just recently and it looks like the company wants to further protect our privacy by adding an extra layer of encryption to Google Search too.

That Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection encrypts your information and makes your Internet activity more secure. Besides Gmail, which is a service that certainly can use the added security feature, other Google services use it. Google Docs, AdSense, AdWords, Google Reader, Calendar are just a few of them and we’re certainly happy to know that some of our private data is securely sent between our computers and Google’s servers.

Google Search is the last to join the party and, soon enough, searching for stuff with Google will be a lot safer than before, not that most of us are that worried about what we’re Googling for, are we?

Do you have to do anything in particular to secure your searches? No, Google will do it for you automatically. You will recognize that Google Search is an encrypted service by simply looking at the way its web address is written: http://www.google.com is the unencrypted version while https://www.google.com is the protected version. See the difference? The extra “s” there is not a typo but the way your browser will show Google’s homepage after this extra layer of encryption has been added.

But in order to make everything even more obvious, Google will add a custom logo to your new secure search page which clearly indicates that your queries are now safer from being intercepted by anyone else curios to analyze your search habits.

Unfortunately not all the Google Searches will be SSL protected. Browsing for Images or Maps will take you out of the secure searching but that’s probably just temporary as Google will enable default SSL encryption for all its searches in the future. Furthermore you’ll have to know that the extra layer of security will make the whole search process a little slower, not that it will affect you that much, and, just as before, Google will collect the same data related to your search habits in order to “improve your search quality and to provide better service.”

Let’s hear it from your, folks! Do you need secure Google Search or not really?