GNU bug report logs - #56468
www.gnu.org doesn't change http: to https:

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From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: sysadmin <at> gnu.org
Cc: jpeek <at> jpeek.com, 56468 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#56468: [gnu.org #1853606] Re: [bug-diffutils] bug#56468: www.gnu.org doesn't change http: to https:
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 13:23:58 -0700

On 7/28/22 12:08, Andrew Engelbrecht via RT wrote:

> We want to support both HTTPS and HTTP, for those who are using old browsers with outdated ciphers, etc. The HSTS rule is there for people who do visit the HTTPS site, so they will automatically use it in the future.

That sort of thing made sense years ago. But nowadays all the top 
websites (google.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, wikipedia.org, 
twitter.com, reddit.com, amazon.com, etc.) redirect HTTP to HTTPS. For 
example:

  $ curl --head http://wikipedia.org
  HTTP/1.1 301 TLS Redirect
  Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 20:21:38 GMT
  Server: Varnish
  X-Varnish: 376727111
  X-Cache: cp4029 int
  X-Cache-Status: int-front
  Server-Timing: cache;desc="int-front", host;desc="cp4029"
  Permissions-Policy: interest-cohort=()
  Set-Cookie: 
WMF-Last-Access=28-Jul-2022;Path=/;HttpOnly;secure;Expires=Mon, 29 Aug 
2022 12:00:00 GMT
  Set-Cookie: 
WMF-Last-Access-Global=28-Jul-2022;Path=/;Domain=.wikipedia.org;HttpOnly;secure;Expires=Mon, 
29 Aug 2022 12:00:00 GMT
  X-Client-IP: 2603:8001:6407:db8d:2280:c8bd:bd1c:bace
  Location: https://wikipedia.org/
  Content-Length: 0
  Connection: keep-alive


Essentially nobody uses browsers so old that they can't handle this, so 
gnu.org might as well do what major websites do. That way, we won't 
confuse and/or discourage ordinary users like the person who filed GNU 
Bug#56488.

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