According to statistics provided by Mozilla’s Firefox Telemetry, around 50% of all websites now load using the secure HTTPS protocol, instead of the less secure HTTP. This time last year, websites that were loaded over an HTTPS connection represented about 40% of the total number of sites loaded.
The main benefit to users who connect to sites with HTTPS enabled is that their information is secure from hackers who are on the same network, HTTPS is particularly important when connecting to websites on increasingly popular public networks.
Firefox’s Telemetry is an opt-in feature that Mozilla describes in the following way on its FAQ:
“Telemetry is a Firefox feature that collects valuable engineering data about the browsing experience in order to make Firefox perform better. Telemetry measures and collects browser data such as performance, hardware, usage and customizations. This data, used in aggregate, allows Mozilla to identify new issues and regressions, obtain more specific information about problem areas in the browser, and, as a result, provide a better browsing experience...It may collect anonymized site visit information in some circumstances, such as when a secure browsing connection fails to connect”.
It should be noted that the data is representative only of users that use Firefox and have opted-in to share Telemetry data, although all modern browsers support HTTPS, if more users" browsing information was collected, the total number of sites using HTTPS may vary from the 50% that"s reported by Firefox"s Telemetry data.
Source: Let’s Encrypt | Image via Mozilla (Medium)