Web browsing company Mozilla have announced that for any web-based feature to work from now, the communication between the server and the browser must be mandatorily done through HTTPS. They further added that this decision will not affect the current web features or standards but will apply for the new ones.
Explaining this, Anne van Kesteren, a Mozilla engineer and author of several open web standards said:
Effective immediately, all new features that are web-exposed are to be restricted to secure contexts.
According to Mozilla, this move has come into effect after a relentless effort to force website owners and developers to adopt HTTPS as a default state for the web to ensure security. They further added, that with the help of pro-bono projects like Let’s Encrypt backed by tech giants Cisco, the initiative gained momentum with over 65% of Mozilla Firefox users migrating to HTTPS by the end of 2017, a 20% hike from the end of 2016.
In closing, Mozilla said that they plan to add developer tools to newer versions of Firefox, in order to allow testing without an HTTPS server. They further added that this is done in order to help developers deploy HTTPS-enabled sites and apps.