Most major websites only use HTTPS to protect your password when you login, or your credit card information when you make a purchase. But that started to change in 2010 when software developer Eric Butler released a free tool called FireSheep to show just how easy it was to temporarily take control of someone else’s account over a shared network — such as a public Wi-Fi connection.

Butler agrees that more use of HTTPS would be a good thing, pointing out that using HTTP makes it easier for governments or criminals to spy on what internet users are doing online. And Micah Lee, a technologist for The Intercept, points out that there are many situations in which it makes sense to use HTTPS besides just protecting passwords or other sensitive information.

For example, HTTPS doesn’t just encrypt the information passing between a server and your computer: It also verifies that the content you’re downloading is coming from the people you expect it to be coming from — again, in theory. That’s something that a regular HTTP connection can’t do.

“Any sort of attacks that involve tricking the victim into connecting to the attacker’s server instead of the real server gets halted by HTTPS,” Lee said via email. “And this is really important, even for non-secret content, because of integrity: you really don’t want attackers modifying the content of websites you’re visiting without your knowledge.”