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Firefox problem

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Jonetc15
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Firefox problem

#14526

Postby Jonetc15 » December 12th, 2016, 8:35 pm

I received a message from Firefox (which I do not remember exactly) to the effect that I should update Firefox. I did this and found that a folder ‘Old Firefox Data’ had been opened on my Desktop.

Then when I logged on to BT.com and gave my email username and password and was routed to Yahoo, Firefox told me: ‘Your connection is not secure. The owner of mail.yahoo.com has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected you to this site. This site uses HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to specify that Firefox only connect to it securely. As a result, it is not possible to add an exception for this certificate'.

I thought that this was a problem specific to mail.yahoo.com, but later when I tried to log on to Advfn.com with my username and password, I received the identical first two sentences of the message – the connection was not secure and the website had been configured improperly. Then when I tried to log on to Outlook.com although the full Internet address appeared, the ‘Sign in’ page would not open.

On the other hand, fortunately I am able to log on to the Lemon Fool website!

Maybe I was wrong to allow Firefox to update itself, but I wonder if others have had a similar problem and how they solved it? (Should I try, for example, to uninstall Firefox and then reinstall it from scratch?)

TIA

Jon
P.S. I also have a major problem with mail.yahoo.com (having been routed there by btinternet.com), but I think that it is better to write a separate post about that.

Breelander
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Re: Firefox problem

#14559

Postby Breelander » December 12th, 2016, 10:40 pm

Jonetc15 wrote:I received a message from Firefox (which I do not remember exactly) to the effect that I should update Firefox. I did this and found that a folder ‘Old Firefox Data’ had been opened on my Desktop.


Firefox regularly issues updates with new security fixes. When one is released a popup asks you to 'update now'. What you should do is follow its link to upgrade your Firefox. The upgrade is downloaded, installed and Firefox restarted. All the old links and settings in your profile are preserved and will work as before.

What it appears you may have done is download and install a new copy of Firefox, or done a 'reset'. This will have created a new default profile and saved your previous one to the desktop.
An "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop is created when you reset Firefox.
You should be able to copy selected data from this folder to the current Firefox profile folder.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/968729

A Firefox profile stores all of your important data, such as your bookmarks, history, cookies, and passwords. This article explains how to copy the files to a new profile, lists important files in the profile and describes what information is stored in these files.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... ld-profile

simoan
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Re: Firefox problem

#14569

Postby simoan » December 12th, 2016, 10:58 pm

Jon,

Might be nothing to do with Firefox. Check the date and time settings on your machine are correct. This can sometimes cause issues with SSL certificate verification on secure sites i.e. https. BTW Lemonfool is not a secure site.

All the best, Si

Jonetc15
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Re: Firefox problem

#14677

Postby Jonetc15 » December 13th, 2016, 11:54 am

Very many thanks for the replies and for Bree's links, which I'm studying. I'm most grateful. I've checked the date and time, as Simoan suggested, and they seem to be OK.

What really puzzles me is the way that Firefox has now denied me access to two more websites due to their alleged insecurty, per my OP.

Best regards

Jon

Jonetc15
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Re: Firefox problem

#14821

Postby Jonetc15 » December 13th, 2016, 7:23 pm

This is utterly ridiculous - Firefox (which I've uninstalled and reinstalled) now didn't let me log on to Amazon properly - just text with no graphics. So I tried another approach - Google searching Amazon. Guess what? You're right - I recieved the message: "The owner of www.google.co.uk has configured their web site improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this web site"[my bold].

Sorry to be so incompetent, but I can't access my btinternet.com emails, nor other websites, and now I can't even use Amazon. Please help...

TIA

Jon

genou
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Re: Firefox problem

#14850

Postby genou » December 13th, 2016, 9:05 pm

Jonetc15 wrote: I can't access my btinternet.com emails, nor other websites, and now I can't even use Amazon. Please help...

TIA

Jon


For now at least, try Chrome or Edge.

Breelander
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Re: Firefox problem

#14883

Postby Breelander » December 13th, 2016, 10:38 pm

Jonetc15 wrote:This is utterly ridiculous - Firefox (which I've uninstalled and reinstalled) now didn't let me log on to Amazon properly - just text with no graphics. So I tried another approach - Google searching Amazon. Guess what? You're right - I recieved the message: "The owner of www.google.co.uk has configured their web site improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this web site"[my bold].


This indicates that Firefox sees a problem with the security certificates for all SSL sites (those that start 'https:').
On websites which are supposed to be secure (the URL begins with "https://"), Firefox must verify that the certificate presented by the website is valid. If the certificate cannot be validated, Firefox will stop the connection to the website and show a "Your connection is not secure" error message instead...

...In case you get this problem on multiple unrelated HTTPS-sites, it indicates that something on your system or network is intercepting your connection and injecting certificates in a way that is not trusted by Firefox. The most common causes are security software scanning encrypted connections or malware listening in, replacing legitimate website certificates with their own.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tr ... cure-sites

Jonetc15
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Re: Firefox problem

#14954

Postby Jonetc15 » December 14th, 2016, 11:05 am

Very many thanks indeed, Bree - you were/are spot on. Prolem solved, except that I haven't yet re-enabled the SSL/TLS filtering.

Yet again I'm most grateful.

ATB

Jon

swill453
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Re: Firefox problem

#14959

Postby swill453 » December 14th, 2016, 11:11 am

Jonetc15 wrote:Very many thanks indeed, Bree - you were/are spot on. Prolem solved, except that I haven't yet re-enabled the SSL/TLS filtering.

In the interest of concluding the thread, can you say how you solved the problem? Since as far as I can see, Bree didn't actually suggest a fix.

Scott.

Breelander
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Re: Firefox problem

#15009

Postby Breelander » December 14th, 2016, 1:34 pm

swill453 wrote:
Jonetc15 wrote:Very many thanks indeed, Bree - you were/are spot on. Prolem solved, except that I haven't yet re-enabled the SSL/TLS filtering.

In the interest of concluding the thread, can you say how you solved the problem? Since as far as I can see, Bree didn't actually suggest a fix.

Scott.


No, I suggested a link to a Mozilla help page describing the problem and offering various fixes. I too would be interested in knowing which one worked.

Jonetc15
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Re: Firefox problem

#15052

Postby Jonetc15 » December 14th, 2016, 3:38 pm

Sorry for any confusion. It was Bree's diagnosis and link (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tr ... cure-sites - "How to troubleshoot the error code "SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER" on secure websites") that led directly to the solution. It meant disabling the SSL/TLS in my security software, restarting my p.c, logging on successfully to various websites (especially for btinternet.com), then enabling the SSL/TLS and restarting my p.c. (IIRC - i.e. follow the link and not my version of what I did...)

ATB

Jon


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