Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 152
Lol what, flamebait? Some mod was very confused...
Anyhow, it's a terrible idea *in general* to use HTTP for anything that is by default over HTTPS. Various reasons include:
1) As mentioned by other posters, we should be increasing the total encrypted traffic, right that decreasing it. Hide everything, even if you have nothing to hide. No good comes of letting everybody between you and Google (and their domestic or international spymasters) observe your traffic, but some harm may come of it.
2) Actual security risk: inadvertently exposing sensitive data. I would *hope* that Google is smart enough to use the Secure flag on all their sensitive cookies, but they wouldn't be the only Internet giant to fail to secure semi-sensitive cookies (ones that are not by themselves very sensitive, but can be used to launch more sophisticated attacks). Using SSL means that all cookies and other traffic is protected, sensitive or otherwise.
3) Actual security risk: SSL stripping. This is where an attacker tricks a victim into doing their browsing over HTTP (which the attacker is monitoring and editing) instead of HTTPS by re-writing any links to HTTPS as HTTP links instead (simple redirects from HTTP to HTTPS are silently completed by the attacker). This is a real-world attack for which freely-available and easily used tools exist. It relies on you going to an HTTP site first though; if you only use HTTPS the attacker can't get into your session to start the attack.
4) Privacy concern. A person's search history can reveal quite a bit about them. You can't keep Google from having it (well, except by using different search engines, especially the ones built for anonymity) but there's no need to make it *widely* available. You say you don't care now, but are you sure you never will? It costs very little to add some confidentiality to your online activities.
5) Convenience. As you note, you "have to" use a different and non-default search URL. That's silly. A minute of installing certificates could save you a lot of annoyance in the future