"Half the Web Is Now Encrypted. That Makes Everyone Safer", 30 Jan 2017

Computer security news is usually pretty dismal, from malware crippling the web to ransomware taking down hospitals. But the web is getting safer in an important way. Today the average volume of encrypted internet traffic finally surpassed the average volume of unencrypted traffic, according to Mozilla, the company behind the popular Firefox web browser...“The significance of this tipping point really can’t be overstated,” says Ross Schulman, co-director of the New America Foundation’s cybersecurity initiative...[It means] everyone, including internet service providers and the government, will have a harder time seeing what information you’re reading or posting to the web.  And it can help ensure that when you visit a website, you’re seeing what its authors intended.  Without encryption, it’s all too easy for, say, a repressive government or a malicious hacker to replace Wikipedia entries or other webpages with their own content, or to trick you into downloading malware...[F]or many years most website owners didn’t see the benefit of encrypting everything. But as the ease of stealing unencrypted passwords and delivering altered websites became apparent, wider use of encryption became a priority...[Refers to Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and the New York Times]