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why does website address say 'not encrypted'

  • 5 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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when I click on website address a 'square' appears at the beginning of the address. When I click it says website is not 'encrypted' what does this mean? Also http:// and www. do not appear at the beginning of the address.

when I click on website address a 'square' appears at the beginning of the address. When I click it says website is not 'encrypted' what does this mean? Also http:// and www. do not appear at the beginning of the address.

All Replies (5)

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See Site Identity Button:

You can set the pref browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false on the about:config page to see the http: protocol.
You can set the pref browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled to false on the about:config page to disable the highlighting of the domain and see the full URL more clearly.

Modified by cor-el

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I'm sorry I don't understand your instructions can you re-write please

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You can open the about:config page via the location bar like you open a website.
about: is a build-in protocol to access some build-in pages and about:config open a page that shows preferences.
If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.

Use the Filter bar at to top of the about:config page to locate a preference more easily. Type in the Filter: browser.urlbar

Double click each of the two Boolean prefs browser.urlbar.trimURLs and browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled to change the value from true to false. That should restore the previous behavior of the location bar.


You only see useful information if you hover or click the site's favicon on the location bar if there is a secure HTTPS connection.
If you have a normal HTTP connection the you see a message that the connection is not encrypted.

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I do not have a normal http:// or www. just the name of the website in bold

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Did you set the two prefs that I mentioned to false, so they show as bold (user set) on the about:config page?

That should make the URL show more clearly and also display the http protocol.