How important is it to encrypt PayPal buttons? I currently have all of the buttons on my site encrypted, but it makes it a pain in the butt to modify prices and names. Is there something that can be done to cause harm if these buttons are not encrypted? Also, does anyone know of a way to encrypt PayPal's shopping cart buttons? I am currently using the Buy Now buttons.
If you don't encrypt your buttons people could get your products for free, stealing you, unless you use some script to verify that people paid for it...
Encrypted buttons are best when you have a landing page after payment/ ie for downloads after paying. I it's unencrypted then people can see the download page URL without paying.
So if I sell physical items, with my return url directing to a page that says "Thanks for your Purchase", there wouldn't be a need for encryption?
No. It wont need. But I would recommend to make them encrypted. It doesn't costs you anything to make them encrypted....
If you are having hard coded buttons then it is good to encrypt them. If you are not giving any product on landing page. Plus the amount is dynamically changed then non encrypted buttons work.
I think if we didn't encrypt paypal button the buyers can easily get into the page which should come after the payment !