[rpmerf]

IT / computer security guy here. You can load the page in HTTP or HTTPS. HTTP is default. With HTTP, everything is sent in plain text. So when you log in, if I was to sniff the data being sent back and forth, I could see your username and password in pain text. HTTPS is secure. This requires a trusted certificate on the server side. Upon first logging into the site, a handshake is done, and the communication is encrypted. If the data is sniffed, it would need to be decrypted before the data could be read. This is very difficult and time consuming.

For a site like this, it doesn't matter much. I don't think anyone is going to be sniffing packets to get forum user names and passwords. If you are on public WiFi, I would certainly use HTTPS whenever possible. Hackers will hang out on public WiFi and capture packets looking for any juicy information they can get. On a secured WiFi or wired network, it is less likely for someone to be listening.