Facebook Could Slow Slightly As Security Measures Are Rolled Out

Facebook have warned users that the site may be responding a little slower than usual as the social media giants roll out new security measures for users.

According to a report by TechCrunch, Facebook have been working on improving the infrastructure of Facebook for the past two years and now the company are finally ready to make the transition to HTTPS for all users.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is used by many sites to stop third parties from being able to snoop around during connections between users and sites.

Facebook have already been using HTTPS when users log in to the site and type in their user name and password but now this is being introduced across tall of Facebook.

The changes to Facebook are expected to “slow down connections only slightly”  but it will be up to users of Facebook to decide if they want to take advantage of the new security changes.

Anyone n0t wanting the new changes brought into their account simply needs to opt out if they would rather not sacrifice any speed.

Two years ago Facebook announced that anyone wanting to use the social media network could opt in to use it with HTTPS but that the service would be slower but now the service is available as an opt out option showing the progress that Facebook have made when it comes to tackling security for users.

Frederic Wolems, the security policy manager at Facebook told TechCrunch: “It is far from a simple task to build out this capability for the more than a billion people that use the site and retain the stability and speed we expect, but we are making progress daily towards this end.  This may slow down connections only slightly, but we have deployed significant performance enhancements to our load balancing infrastructure to mitigate most of the impact of moving to HTTPS and will be continuing this work as we deploy this feature.”

The introduction of a security system that can potentially slow down the users experience of the site is a brave move from Facebook but it shows that the company is really taking security seriously and is willing to sacrifice speed for safety while using the site.

With so much personal information shared on Facebook it is more important than ever that users should be protected.

By making the service an opt out option it means that the users of Facebook who may not be aware of the importance of HTTPS will automatically be included in the security upgrade rather than leaving it to only those in the know being able to have the benefits of heightened security.