You completely misunderstand Firefox's intentions. CNET is a cesspool of bundled garbage. You download one program and end with 4 different ones. I wouldn't touch anything there with a ten foot pole. Firefox is doing the right thing by not letting you go there.

Why are you only using Private Browsing only? This will happen to many sites when you do this it's not a FF issue. Sites nowdays will block Private Browsers should you prevent cookie or tracking from running. You either choose to regular Browser or not go to those site on Private Browsing.

To Moses and WestEnd

The title of my post misled you. I am not using private browsing. I used "Privacy" in the sense that the warning page hints at the danger of my information being stolen through the mixture of https content with http content.

As I said above, this warning is showing up on sites that I have used many times without problem. It is also showing up on similar kinds of sites where I do not expect a problem. There are a lot of sites that I go to for information and nothing else. The minute I am asked to "sign up" in order to get the information, I'm out of there.

Similarly, if you reread what I said about c/net, you will see that I know c/net is a cesspool. I was using that as an example of sites that, not only do I know that they are a cesspool, I don't need Firefox to tell me that.

Moreover, I'm getting sites where when I click a link, I am seemingly out in the ether. The url box shows the link url, but the page is blank and the reload doesn't work. There's no indication via a warning that there is anything wrong with this site.

These two things are happening to such a noticeable extent that it has caused me to write on this board.

bdjim said

But now I am being blocked from going places I have gone to in the past with no problem. What I'm doing now - which is really counterproductive and annoying as hell - when Firefox blocks me from something I have had no problem with, I go over to IE and enter the url. I get the same warning from IE, but I can do a real-time (read one-time) by-pass and see the site.

Could you describe the error screen you get more specifically? Is this along the lines of the screen shown in either of these articles:

• What do the security warning codes mean?
• How does built-in Phishing and Malware Protection work?

Or something else?

The screen relates to the first article. What does "Your connection is not secure" mean?

bdjim said

The screen relates to the first article. What does "Your connection is not secure" mean?

If you click the "Advanced" button on the error page, which kind of problem do you see there? For example:

• Certificate is valid for a different address but not this one
• Certificate issuer is not recognized

The first problem sometimes is caused by HTTPS Everywhere, which I saw on your extensions list. Although the server can make a secure connection, it does so using a general certificate and not one specific to the particular site. HTTPS Everywhere doesn't always distinguish between those two things, but Firefox does.

While you can make an exception in that case to accept the general certificate, it's easier just to edit the address back to HTTP instead, since clearly the site owner did not intend for you to use HTTPS and other things may end up being broken if you make an exception and push forward with HTTPS.

deactivating "https everywhere" seems to have solved the problem. Thanks

I think they're really trying to do the right thing with HTTPS Everywhere, but it really needs to be HTTPS in just the important places to avoid such issues.