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http vs. https links

March 11, 2008

Thanks to Tim Jackson for bringing this one to my attention. Since I’ve worked in Coldfusion I’ve always used code similar to this:

<cfset variables.protocol = iif(CGI.SERVER_PORT EQ 443, de("https"), de("http"))>

So that I could avoid the “This page contains unsecure items.” message when embedding Flash, Javascript, images, etc.

<img src="#variables.protocol#://www.foo.com/linkedimage.jpg"/>

Tim advised me that he had found a new way to avoid this without using server-side code:

<img src="//www.foo.com/linkedimages.jpg"/>

Apparently the browser retains the current protocol. I’ve tested this in IE7 and Firefox using images, Flash, anchors, and JavaScript.