Google.com redirects to HTTPS when going to HTTP

Products

• ProxySG Software - SGOS

Issue/Introduction

HTTP does not work for Google.
When going to http://www.google.com, the user gets redirected to https://www.google.com.
The proxy is trying to SSL intercept HTTP traffic.
Why does this happen and how can a user prevent this redirection?

 

Resolution

Google.com redirects the browser from HTTP to HTTPS if there is any other Google based service that is logged in by the user.

For example, if Google groups was logged in and the user tries to go to http://www.google.com it gets redirected to https://www.google.com

This happens because Google recognizes, from a cookie, that this is a Google user and wants to have the user go via HTTPS to secure the private information about this user.

 

The browser was reporting page cannot be displayed when we try to go to http://www.google.com because it was actually redirected to an HTTPS page ( you can see that in the browser address bar). if HTTPS is not handled or allowed it would seem to the end user that the proxy is denying HTTP traffic for an allowed site.

 

A good way to validate is to find the 302 redirects in Wireshark on the client side. Also, try another HTTP based site and web browsing should work.

 

 

In order to avoid this problem you have to logout the user from the Google application.  Another possible solution is to suppress the cookie, but this might affect functionality.