Google Notifier in Secure Mode
August 11th, 2007If you use the handy Google Notifier utility on the Mac, this is a setting you should definitely be configuring. The Notifier, by default, sends your Gmail password over the network in clear text while polling your Inbox for new messages. There is a hidden key setting that can be enabled, to force the Notifier to use the secure HTTPS protocol each time. Here’s how. If you have a bookmark for Gmail (or Google Mail as it’s called in Europe), make sure you update it to https://mail.google.com, if you want to ensure that the secure protocol is used each time.
According to the Mac OS X Hints weblog:
Pull down the Notifier menu (either Calendar or Gmail), hold down Command and Option, and click Preferences on the menu. You’ll see a hidden settings editor. Enter SecureAlways in the Key field (upper and lower case must be entered as shown) and 1 in the Value field, then click Set. Quit Notifier and start it up again. From now on, all connections with both Gmail & Gcal will be https. Thanks to this comment on the O’Reilly blogs for this trick!
