Productivity Portfolio

Anyone who uses public hotspots should understand there is a risk of your information being intercepted by people in range using packet sniffers. These people may not even be in view. This is why I prefer to use https://mail.google.com/ when I’m on public terminals. This isn’t an issue for people using virtual private networks (VPN).

Performance & Compatibility Issues

One notable difference when using any https site is performance. This is true whether you’re on your online banking site or Google email. The reason is it takes extra processing to encrypt the data during transmission. Several years ago, I heard a statistic that the performance hit was 28%. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. The best test is to see if you notice Gmail being slow.

As with most new features, there tends to be issues that arise about compatibility. I’m sure these will be resolved in time. The initial ones seem to be with Gmail for mobile applications. Google already has a Help Center post on this issue. Google Groups is showing some people are having issues with Gmail Notifier.

If you experience issues after selecting the option, I’d suggest disabling it and see if the problem goes away. You can always use the https:// address I mentioned above.

How to set your Gmail account for Encryption,

1. Log into your Gmail account.

2. In the top right look for the Settings link.

3. Click the General link if you’re not there already.

4. Scroll down to the bottom to the Browser connection: section.

5. Select Always use https.

Click to enlarge

6. Click Save Changes.

If you don’t see the Browser Connection section, try refreshing your page. Google is rolling the feature out and it may not be on all their servers yet.

I think this Gmail encryption setting is a nice addition. I’ve seen too many people in my local café needlessly put themselves at. This automatic setting will give them protection from eavesdroppers during transmission.