Tuesday, August 1, 2017

How to access a website that shows "Your connection is not secure"?


When I browse a website I see "Your connection is not secure". What to do?
If you are trying to access a website served on HTTP then most probably you would see "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private". In some cases, the reason for the error could be due to the following reasons.

Browsers today indicate whether a website is secure or not by the following icons on the left of the address bar:
  • Lock Secure
  • Info Info or Not secure
  • Dangerous Not secure or Dangerous

Reasons for "Your connection is not private " error could be due to:
  •     Wrong date and time (User's end)
  •     Antivirus block SSL Connection (User's end)
  •     Invalid Browser Cache and Cookies files (User's end)
  •     SSL not implemented (Website owner's end)
  •     Expired SSL certificate (Website Owner's end)
  •     Invalid SSL Certificate Setup (Website Owner's end)
Solutions for "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private" due to the above errors:

    Wrong Date & Time:  (User's end)
If computer or device's date & time is incorrect, the browser is unable to verify the SSL certificate. Check your system date and time and correct it. Then try again.
   
    Antivirus Blocked SSL Connection:  (User's End)
Besides wrong date & time, antivirus software may be blocking SSL connections. Disable the antivirus and try again. If it works with antivirus blocked, then you need to check your antivirus settings to allow SSL connections.
   
    Invalid Browser's Cookies & Cached Files: (User's End)
Invalid Cache and cookies can also cause this error. Try clearing cookies and cached files in the browser and then try again.
   
    Expired SSL Certificates: (Website owner's end)
In some cases, the owner of the website might have applied SSL but the certificate expired. In that case, the website link may have HTTPS in the URL but there will be a red mark in the URL. In this case, the user cannot do anything about it. A user may notify the website owner if there is a way to. As a user, if you need to access the website and the website is trusted, then you can proceed to access the website by:

  • On Firefox browsers: click Advanced and add Exception. 
  • On Chrome browsers: click "Proceed to www.websitename" 
    Invalid SSL Certificate Setup: (Website owner's end)
In some cases, the "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private" error could be due to invalid setup of SSL certificate. As a user there is nothing you can do from your end.A user may notify the website owner if there is a way to. As a user, if you need to access the website and the website is trusted, then you can proceed to access the website by:
  • On Firefox browsers: click Advanced and add Exception. 
  • On Chrome browsers: click "Proceed to www.websitename" 


How to access a website that shows "Your connection is not secure"?

The "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private" error could be due to any of the reasons discussed above or something else. Users may check if the error is occuring from their end such as incorrect system date and time etc. But if the issue is from the website owner's end, there is nothing a user can do. 

 If you trust the website (well, not the connection), and you have to access it, then you can go ahead by following the steps below in Firefox browser:
  • On the page where "Your connection is not secure" message is displayed, click on "Advanced"
  • Now click on Add Exception.
  • Click on Confirm Security Exception
  • If you want, you can view more information regarding the problematic certificate by clicking the View button.
Similarly in Chrome, you can click on "Proceed to www.website..." to continue accessing the website.

There are some detailed steps to check more when you see "Your connection is not secure" here.

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