Gmail works as HTTP now too

Not sure if this has been enabled for a long time now...but if you try and access gmail using a standard http unsecure connection it doesn't redirect you to the SSL connection. I just noticed it today...when I saw no padlock in the corner. When you first log in it still takes you to the secure one...but if you just type in www.gmail.com then it will take you to the http **non-secure** version (at least in Firefox).

My thoughts are that Google are trying to cut down on the number of secure services that they release. Since the https header requires a huge amount of bandwidth more than http...and Google's slower servers are the https ones then I'm guessing that to get stability with all the new services they are going to move some of them over to the simple http protocol. For email however, I think https make more sense...I mean for Google Feed Reader or something like that it doesn't actually matter but for most people Gmail needs to allow for a secure connection.