Facebook Like button and undocumented HTTPS requirement

I have an hypothesis that I want to bounce around some, this seemed like a good crowd do to so… it may save someone time and it would be good to hear from somebody that may have had a similar experience.

Long story short, when adding a Facebook Like button to your site, if you want all users to consistently get the Post to Facebook popup after liking the page, you NEED to get an SSL Cert and enable HTTPS on your site.

I’m adding a Facebook Like button to a site, easy enough… I go to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ and get the code / instructions. Past the code to a page and we’re good.

Now… when I go to test it, the like button works fine, always… the like feature is NOT in question here.

I found in some cases after a user liked the button, they did not get the popup window to also post to their wall. I needed that extra window to show up (client wanted it) so I needed to dig in.

That Post to Facebook popup only appears consistently for users with “Secure Browsing” disabled (*currently* Account settings > Security.)

IF the user does not have Secure Browsing enabled, it doesn’t matter, the Post popup appears always.

So I would assume the fix is to get an SSL cert … even if you don’t actually transfer any secure data on your own site.

To prove this concept… take the following into account…
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article588083.ece works.
https://www.buffalonews.com/city/article588083.ece does not work.
http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/facebook-friendly/ works.
https://mashable.com/2011/10/10/facebook-friendly/ works.

Because mashable has https enabled, the like button works despite the users Secure Browsing preference. However, for buffalonews viewers, the Post popup only shows up if the user has NOT checked the enable Secure Browsing preference.

I just wish that was documented with the like button.