Is there truth to HTTP as opposed to HTTPS?

The HTTPS which stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol SECURE. Is a good defense to hackers. But this only has to be on the page that you actually enter credit card numbers into. Not every page.

The S in HTTPS stands for secure and websites with that option have a legal certificate saying that they are a legitimate company. Other online shops may not have the S in their name (the one I work for doesn't) but it does not necessarily mean that they are dodgy. I would suggest searching around for people's comments on that particular website to see if anyone has had a bad experience with them.

Also if possible pay by paypal or using another well known payment option as the re-direction to that link from the shops website should be HTTPS.

HTTPS is a secure protocol over HTTP.

If the shopping site is HTTP don't worry if the page where you enter the cradit card details is HTTPS. Rest of the site can be in http. But never give you CC details on anything that dont has a S(HTTPS) in it

Well HTTPS is more secure, you can get sites that have both, I had one that I had to log into on a regular basis, if I went to the HTTP one it wouldn't let me log in, but sites don't need it, it's more to protect you. It probably won't matter though.

http:// is the standard socker for websites.

https:// is the secure way to submit date to sites it means the data being sent is sent to safly and is encrypted. Allways look for the padlock in your browser and ensure the certifcate is valid first.

If you use IE 7 it will go RED if the certificate in invalid, FF 3 will block the website.

It does enycrypt the transmission of the data as its transferred to the server. Usually its as you check out also/ if it is just http you data could possibly be viewed.