Safari Extensions

SSL Everywhere is a Safari web browser extension to force SSL encryption for many of today’s popular websites. It was originally designed to protect against session-hijacking attacks initiated by Firesheep when using an open public WiFi connection like those found in coffee shops and airports.

Due to limitations placed on Safari extensions, SSL Everywhere will not completely protect you from session-hijacking attacks. However, it does enhance security by automatically redirecting you to secure versions of many websites and rewriting insecure links to their SSL-encrypted equivalents. If you must use Safari to access popular websites when connected to an open WiFi network, you’re probably better off doing it with SSL Everywhere.

The authors don’t currently offer a pre-built version of the extension for easy installation, stating that they don’t want people to casually install it and forget that it’s not secure for all websites. However, the code is open source and is available for download and manual installation.

If you decide to build this yourself, definitely read the developer’s disclaimer/explanation first. In fact, if you’re wondering why there’s no binary to download, you should probably read it too. And consider reading up on the session hijacking tool Firesheep, the reason for this particular season. It may come as a huge surprise—although I sincerely hope it doesn’t—but your information is often not safe on the internet.