

Ask HN: Why is Youtube not https strict? - mememememememe

You can access http and https on Youtube. Youtube can handles millions of users, so the argument "encryption" takes time doesn't seem legitimate. Or is it? Maybe not... since youtube serves videos, not text.<p>I don't think engineers would make that kind of mistake leaving http on. There must be a good reason, right?<p>Any thoughts on this?
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mike-cardwell
Extra hardware + extra complexity + extra work + extra costs.

Personally I'm in the camp that thinks the Internet would be a lot more secure
and free if all traffic was always encrypted. But the business reasons for not
using encryption when it's not explicitly required, are fairly obvious.

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Hello71
Because they have no reason to do so.

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mememememememe
Hmm that's not a very good argument. Why should search page on Google be
encrypted then? Youtube has search function too.

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J_Darnley
Last I checked, google search can also be accessed through http. The reason
why youtube's search can be http without issue is that all results are on
youtube so you won't be leaking the search to another site.

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xvolter
Actually, Google enforces HTTPS nowadays when possible. YouTube however is
entirely different, YouTube consumes too much bandwidth as-is, they would not
want to enforce HTTPS and increase their overall bandwidth consumption like
that.

Additionally, on Google you could be searching for confidential things you do
not want intercepted, YouTube is more social and public, therefore it is not
as high priority.

If you want to enforce HTTPS on sites, use an HTTPS everywhere plugin,
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https-
everywhere/g...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https-
everywhere/gcbommkclmclpchllfjekcdonpmejbdp) [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/https-finder/...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/https-finder/?src=search)

