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This timeline gives a history of HTTPS usage and adoption, describing the gradual increase in websites and clients using HTTPS. HTTPS is a secure, encrypted version of HTTP and has been implemented using Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS). The timeline spans the period from 1994, when HTTPS and SSL were first introduced on {{w|Netscape Navigator}}, to 2019, by which time , thanks to the efforts of Google, Mozilla, and many privacy-focused organizations, HTTPS is uniquitous and accounts for more traffic than plain, unencrypted HTTP.
== Sample questions ==
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| 2018 || {{dts|February 27}} || Certificate authority || Let's Encrypt || Wildcard support || Let's Encrypt plans to make wildcard support fully available on this date, after launching a public test API endpoint for the ACME v2 protocol and wildcard support on January 4, 2018.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://letsencrypt.org/2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates-coming-jan-2018.html|title = Wildcard Certificates Coming January 2018|last = Aas|first = Josh|date = July 6, 2017|accessdate = January 28, 2018|publisher = Let's Encrypt}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|Aprril 1}} || CDN || Cloudflare || Secure DNS resolver || Cloudflare launches 1.1.1.1, a secure DNS resolver that uses both DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-1111/|title = Announcing 1.1.1.1: the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service|last = Prince|first = Matthew|date = April 1, 2018|accessdate = December 1, 2019|publisher = Cloudflare}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|April 14}} || Website || IMDb || Default HTTPS-only || Judging from homepage captures on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, this is the date that the IMDb transitions from HTTP to default HTTPS-only. See captures for April 13<ref>{{cite web|url = http://web.archive.org/web/20180413090715/http://www.imdb.com/|title = IMDb, as captured on April 13, 2018|date = April 13, 2018|accessdate = April 13, 2019}}</ref> and April 14.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://web.archive.org/web/20180414091804/https://www.imdb.com/|title = IMDb, as captured on April 14, 2018|date = April 14, 2018|accessdate = April 13, 2019}}</ref> There does not appear to be any official announcement of the transition, but a Quora question with answers as late as February 2018 confirms that people noticed that the site was still using plain HTTP till February 2018.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.quora.com/Why-does-IMDB-use-http-and-not-HTTPS|title = Why does IMDB use http and not HTTPS?|accessdate = April 13, 2019|publisher = Quora}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|August 7}} || Website || BBC || Site-wide censorship due to HTTPS adoption || The BBC website is blocked in China shortly after it migrated to HTTPS-only. For HTTPS websites, it is not possible for intermediaries in the network to identify individual pages being browsed, so the Chinese government needs to block the whole site in order to block access to politically sensitive content.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190|title = BBC websites blocked in China after security change|date = August 7, 2018|accessdate = April 13, 2019}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|September 24}} || CDN || Cloudflare || Support for encrypted SNI || {{w|Cloudflare}} announces that it is beginning support of encrypted SNI.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://blog.cloudflare.com/esni/|title = Encrypting SNI: Fixing One of the Core Internet Bugs|last = Prince|first = Matthew|date = September 24, 2018|accessdate = December 1, 2019|publisher = Cloudflare}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = https://blog.cloudflare.com/encrypted-sni/|title = Encrypt it or lose it: how encrypted SNI works|last = Ghedini|first = Alessandro|date = September 24, 2018|accessdate = December 1, 2019|publisher = Cloudflare}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|October 18}} || Browser || Firefox || Support for encrypted SNI || {{w|Firefox}} announces support for encrypted SNI in the Firefox Nightly build.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/10/18/encrypted-sni-comes-to-firefox-nightly/|title = Encrypted SNI Comes to Firefox Nightly|last = Rescorla|first = Eric|date = October 18, 2018|accessdate = December 1, 2019|publisher = Mozilla}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = https://blog.cloudflare.com/encrypt-that-sni-firefox-edition/|title = Encrypt that SNI: Firefox edition|date = October 18, 2018|accessdate = December 1, 2019|publishe = Cloudflare}}</ref>
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| 2019 || {{dts|January}} to February; with some early test efforts in October 2018, and some wrap-up work as late as April 11 || Website || Wikia / Fandom || Default HTTPS-only || Fandom Inc., the company previously known as Wikia, moves the bulk of their community wikis from HTTP to HTTPS, while also changing the domain from wikia.com to fandom.com (to be more consistent with the company's new name and branding). Some domains that do not fit with the Fandom brand are moved to wikia.org instead; these are also migrated to HTTPS.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Help:Fandom_domain_migration|title = Help:Fandom domain migration|accessdate = April 13, 2019|publisher = Fandom Community Central}}</ref>
