Force your website to run encrypted (https://)

[ParanoiaPhD]

So I've had many websites... none of them ever had ssl encryption unless you physically typed in https:// before the domain... SO I found this youtube video that taught me the trick...

Basically you create a new file in the same folder as your index pages... So index page for your website or your forums and you add a file named ".htaccess" If its already there just edit it...

inside that file add the following code and then presto https:// always...

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

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the video is kinda… hard to understand.

 

[Regnak]

Hi there !

Thank you for that useful piece of information. I can only encourage webmasters to follow that tip.

Personally, for hosting my websites, I use ISPConfig, which comes with ready-to-use tools to enable encryption (with LetsEncrypt) and redirection (just tick 'redirect http to https' and the job is done ^^).

For those who don't want to use ISPConfig, I recommend using LetsEncrypt (and/or certbot) to get free SSL Certificates that can be renewed every three months.

Hopefully our two posts here will motivate webmasters to host secure websites, @ParanoiaPhD

Thanks for creating that topic.

-Rek-