Firefox 3.0's SSL Certificate Interface Meets Resistance
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 29th Aug 2008 13:23 UTC, submitted by irbis
Mozilla & Gecko clones Firefox 3.0, released not too long ago, was generally well-received. It added a load of new features, while also providing much-needed speed improvements and better memory management. Some new features, however, have met more resistance - one of them is the rather complicated user interface thrown at users when they reach a website with an invalid or expired SSL certificate.
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SSL Security
by AndrewDubya on Fri 29th Aug 2008 16:12 UTC
AndrewDubya
Member since:
2006-10-15

Ok, I can see them adding an option to make it easier, but the complaint doesn't sound justified to me.

People do not know how to protect themselves on the Internet. What exactly do you mean when you say you were at a loss? The entire point of it was to make people _actually_ read the warning messages. Sure I was confused about the interface until I read it, and that was The Damned Point. Sometimes, usability is the opposite of what you want. Sometimes, you just need a nice confusing jolt to make the user pay attention to the message instead of letting them drift through the process.

Again, normal users _need_ this. It's a huge step toward making the web somewhat safer. If they want to make it easier, it should be through a buried browser option.

EDIT: Additionally, I'm sure you can add your own authority if you self-sign.

Edited 2008-08-29 16:14 UTC

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