Certificate Manager - TURKTRUST - What is it?
In Certificate Manager I find TURKTRUST - it has a Builtin Object token (whatever that is) - when I Google it, I get sites that are written in what looks to be an eastern European language but no English sites with information on what or who it is. Does anyone have a clue what it is and why I need it?
All Replies (3)
That are the build-in root certificates that Firefox uses to verify the certificates send by servers.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_certificate
- http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/certs/policy/ - Mozilla CA Certificate Policy
In Options/View Certificates/Your Certificates there are over 80 companies (?) with some 200 lines of Builtin Object Tokens or Software Security Devices. The Wiki description does absolutely nothing to explain (for most of the people on my planet) what it is (or does): "A root certificate is either an unsigned public key certificate or a self-signed certificate that identifies the Root Certificate Authority". Great - Well, that certainly makes it about as clear as mud for me! Do these certificates allow the holder to install anything in my computer without my knowing it - like the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant - or otherwise have any access to my computer? There are companies there I've never used (AOL, etc.) nor would I. What would happen if I just deleted all of these certificates and let them populate as I used one of their websites that required them?
Certificates labeled as "Builtin Object Tokens" are the build-in root certificates. Certificates labeled as "Software Security Devices" are intermediate certificates that Firefox automatically stores for future use after visiting a server that sends such an intermediate certificate. Those certificates can be removed. You cannot remove build-in root certificates, you can only disable the trust bits via Edit.