SSL - A processing layer in your computer that permits relatively secure exchange of data over
TCP/IP based networks such as the
Internet. The system uses an algorithm to produce a dynamically generated
encryption key that is mutually agreed on and then
encrypts all data sent over the network with the
encryption key.
You will use SSL whenever you perform some form of secure transaction on the
world wide web (a credit card purchase for example). You can see when your
browser uses SSL because the URL in the address field changes from "http://..." to "https://..." (an 's' is added to the end).