Aiming to prevent users' search queries and results from interception, Google
said Friday it is rolling
out an encrypted version of its search service.
The beta offering, available at https://www.google.com won't return links to all features, including Image
Search and Maps. Google additionally warns that searching on the encrypted site might take longer than on the non-encrypted one.
Google still retains its own logs tying IP addresses to search
queries. "Searching over SSL doesn't reduce the data sent to Google -- it only hides that data from third parties who seek it," the company says.