Communication · 1995

SSL/TLS encryption

The padlock in the browser makes it safe to send a credit card number over the web.

Netscape released SSL 2.0 in 1995, standardised as TLS in 1999. Encrypted connections enabled online commerce and banking, and by the 2020s over 90 percent of web page loads in Chrome used HTTPS.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

World Wide Web 1991
Public-key cryptography 1976

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Internet users in the United States Latest: 322M people (2024) Source: Our World in Data

Share of people online Latest: 73.6 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data