Title: HSTS
Last modified: August 31, 2016

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# HSTS

 *  Resolved [Amir](https://wordpress.org/support/users/repenter/)
 * (@repenter)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/)
 * Hi 🙂
    I am using your plugin and I have a question about HSTS. I have read about
   it in faq. But what is the general benefit of this option? and when should we
   use it?
 * Thanks
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/)

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Plugin Contributor [Rogier Lankhorst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rogierlankhorst/)
 * (@rogierlankhorst)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237387)
 * HSTS forces all your visitors to view your site over SSL, and makes their browser
   remember it for a year afterwards.
 * So it makes your site more secure, and makes it harder to do a man in the middle
   attack.
 * If you want to keep the option open to revert back to http, don’t enable it, 
   in all other case I would enable it.
 * Hope this helps!
 * Rogier
 *  Thread Starter [Amir](https://wordpress.org/support/users/repenter/)
 * (@repenter)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237466)
 * Hey Rogier
    Sorry, I got another problem. Few days ago my developer installed
   this on my website and from that time gtmetrix and gwt can not open my site.
 * My website has not been optimized yet, but at least I could open it in gtmetrix
   and gwt, before.
 * My webhosting told me this:
    Instead of changing in htaccesss, change the http
   to https inside the wordpress. The .htaccess method is adding load time to your
   site.
 * So is this correct? Did you have similar issue in the past?
 * Thanks
 *  Thread Starter [Amir](https://wordpress.org/support/users/repenter/)
 * (@repenter)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237473)
 * He also added:
    we would suggest not forcing this redirect via .htaccess as WordPress
   has its own rewrite engine, using .htaccess adds load time to your page.
 * Do you agree with this? Can you guide me a bit?
 *  Plugin Contributor [Rogier Lankhorst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rogierlankhorst/)
 * (@rogierlankhorst)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237495)
 * Hi Amir,
 * In the siteurl as well as the homeurl the http is automatically changed to https
   when you activate Really Simple SSL.
 * You can always remove the .htaccess redirects, and enable “stop editing the .
   htaccess” in the plugin settings. Then you can check if that helps. But in my
   experience a .htaccess redirect is very fast. Besides, it only kicks in when 
   a user requests the site on http.
 * Without the .htaccess the website is in some cases accessible over http, which
   is less secure.
 * Hope this helps.
 * Rogier
 *  Thread Starter [Amir](https://wordpress.org/support/users/repenter/)
 * (@repenter)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237560)
 * Hi Rogier
    Sorry to bring this up again. I used this tutorial for switching to
   https: [https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-to-https/](https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-to-https/)
 * So in my htaccess I entered this code:
 * RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
    RewriteRule (.*) [https://%](https://%){HTTP_HOST}%{
   REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
 * And I noticed it’s similar to your plugin’s code:
 * RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [https://%](https://%){HTTP_HOST}%{
   REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
 * I want to be sure are these equal? I can remove the other code?
 * Thanks
 *  Plugin Contributor [Rogier Lankhorst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rogierlankhorst/)
 * (@rogierlankhorst)
 * [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237561)
 * The effect of both lines of code is the same, so you can choose which one you
   like best 🙂

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘HSTS’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/really-simple-ssl/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=2839720)
 * [Really Simple Security - Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/really-simple-ssl/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/really-simple-ssl/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/really-simple-ssl/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/really-simple-ssl/reviews/)

 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Rogier Lankhorst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rogierlankhorst/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hsts/#post-7237561)
 * Status: resolved