How to authenticate JIRA before / after opening JIRA url in browser?

I need to open jira url in browser on button click in my software. But the jira page asks for authentication on first load. How do I pass my credentials in any way before / after opening a web page?

• I tried passing the username and password in the url and it works. But the username and password are in clear text and thus accessible to everyone

• I used Selenium to login after page load. But I need a solution that doesn't use selenium.

• I have an idea for using JIRA REST API and authentication via http get, but here I have an httpconnection object. Is there a way to open the httpconnection object in the browser or use the connection object for further calls.