For some time Gmail has offered the ability to default to using HTTPS, for more secure access. However, they have now announced that it is to be made the default.

One thing this will lead to, assuming you use it, is Gmail Notifier to stop working.

Google themselves, hidden away in a help screen (read the section in the yellow box), offer a solution to this in the way of a downloadable registry change that will force Notifier to use HTTPS too. Simply download the zip file, uncompress it and run the file named notifier_https.reg. There’s a second file in the folder too – notifier_https_undo.reg – this is for restore Gmail Notifier back to how it was.