Facebook switches HTTPS browsing on for all; testing new features like embeddable posts

It’s been a busy few days at the Facebook office. The company has not only managed to shift everyone on the social networking website to HTTPS secure browsing by default, it is rolling out a couple of new features that aim to enhance user experience on the website.

In an announcement this morning, Facebook said that it made the HTTPS secure connection mandatory for every user of the website. Facebook had rolled out the option to enable secure browsing two years ago but only a little more than a third of the users had opted to use the feature. All traffic to Facebook’s website and 80 percent of all traffic to Facebook’s mobile website uses a secure connection. Android and iOS versions of Facebook’s app have been using HTTPS for a long time now.

HTTPS now on for all

The service makes use of Transport Layer Security (TLS), or Secure Socket Layer (SSL) in order to make the connection secure. Facebook has claimed that when the service decided to start actively migrating users onto HTTPS by default, the adoption rate had touched about 35 percent, organically.

Facebook is aiming to make using the website as secure an experience as possible and is also planning to implement measures such as 2048-bit RSA keys, Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Elliptic Curve Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) key exchange, Certificate Pinning and HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) as well.

In another move that will be of interest to those who aren't web security geeks, the social networking giant has also announced that it is finally introducing embeddable posts. This is one of the features that joins a list full of ones that you thought the service would already have, but didn’t. After going the Twitter way with hashtags, Facebook is at long last going to let you grab a code of a post you’d like to share and insert them within your blog or website.

Embedding posts coming soon

You will be able to embed posts that contain pictures, videos, hashtags and even links. The best part about these embedded posts is that you will be allowed to like and comment on them right from your blog or website. Currently, Facebook is testing this feature with a handful of pages like CNN, Huffington Post, Bleacher Report, PEOPLE and Mashable with a wider rollout slated for soon. Also being tested is a neat little feature that might not increase your productivity or get more interactions on your page, but will take you to a trip down the memory lane. The feature, called “On This Day” will show you what you and your friends were doing exactly a year ago.

Nostalgia!

You can head on to https://www.facebook.com/feed/todayinhistory once you’re logged in to your Facebook account and scroll through a News Feed like page, but from one year ago. The feature is available only to a handful of people right now – mainly those who’ve already migrated on to the new News Feed. Hopefully, Facebook will roll this feature out to a wider audience in the future. It could be a great way to spend an extra few minutes on the website.