Secure Gmail with SSL: No Gmail Notifier Issues
Securing Your Gmail Connection with SSL Encryption
Regardless of the firewall in use, connecting to online services without encryption presents a risk of data interception, particularly when utilizing a wireless network. This article details how to enable SSL for Gmail while ensuring continued functionality of the Gmail Notifier.
While activating SSL for Gmail is now a commonly known practice, maintaining the Gmail Notifier’s operation afterward is less widely understood. Therefore, both procedures will be covered for thoroughness. Consider this also a prompt to activate SSL if it hasn’t been done previously.
Credit for the inspiration behind this guide goes to Pratik.
Configuring Gmail for Consistent SSL Use
After logging into your Gmail account, locate and click the Settings link positioned in the upper right-hand corner of the interface.
Navigate to the bottom of the general settings page and select the "Always use https" option. Then, confirm your selection by clicking the "Save Changes" button.
This adjustment should be sufficient; subsequent logins, regardless of the computer used, will automatically redirect you to the secure SSL version of Gmail.
Adjusting the Gmail Notifier for SSL Encryption
Upon enabling the "Always use https" setting, you may find that the Gmail Notifier ceases to function. This is due to the need for a registry modification to update the default URL to utilize https instead of http.
For clarity, here’s a visual representation of the Gmail Notifier:
This screenshot also provides an opportunity to showcase a preferred desktop wallpaper.
Implementing a Manual Registry Modification
Access the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) via the Start menu’s Run command or search function. Then, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Gmail\Flags
Within the right-hand pane, right-click and create a new string value with these specifications:
- Name: url
- Value: https://mail.google.com/mail/
Close and restart the Gmail Notifier to restore notification functionality.
Utilizing a Downloadable Registry Fix
Google conveniently provides a downloadable registry fix to streamline the Notifier’s configuration. Simply extract the contents of the zip file and double-click the included 'notifier_https.reg' file to activate SSL support for your Notifier. An undo script is also included for reverting the changes.
Download the Gmail Notifier SSL script from google.com