- http stands for "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol", the primary technology protocol on the Web that allows linking and browsing.
- https is "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol" with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), another protocol primarily developed with secure, safe Internet transactions in mind.
So when you navigate to a site such as Amazon or eBay and you go to pay for something, either through a secure shopping cart or an outside payment system such as Paypal, you should see the address in your browser address bar change significantly if the site you have arrived at is a https site, because the https in front of the URL indicates that you are now in a "secure session."