The internet consists of millions of websites, some of which take some form of data from you. If you’re shopping online or have a subscription, websites can also store your payment information, meaning online security is important.
Modern browsers can help prevent a lot of scams and attacks on the internet simply by blocking a malicious website or showing the appropriate warnings. In this article, we’re talking about what “not secure” means in your browser’s address bar and what you can do to fix the problem.
What does “Not Secure” mean in the browser address bar?
Generally speaking, you’ll see a “not secure” error message in the browser address bar, often accompanied by a warning prompt when your browser’s connection to a website isn’t encrypted. This generally happens when a particular website’s SSL certificate has expired or doesn’t exist.
SSL certificates ensure that a site handles your data securely and are often considered a sign of trustworthiness on the internet. The lack of an SSL certificate means that the site in question is likely using HTTP instead of HTTPS, which is an unsecured protocol and, hence, open to attacks.
Also read: How to fix SSL_error_handshake_failure_alert?
How can you fix the “not secure” error in the browser address bar?
Here are five fixes you can try out.
Restart your router
Power cycling your network equipment fixes more issues than you think. More often than not, connectivity issues can be caused by an underlying bug in your router and can be fixed by rebooting.
Get a reliable SSL certificate
If you’re getting your certificates from a not-so-popular issuing authority, chances are your SSL certificate is at fault. We recommend using LetsEncrypt or ZeroSSL to get SSL certificates that don’t cause such problems.
Use HTTPS
If you’re using HTTP to connect to the server, try switching it to HTTPS. Currently, most SSL certificates don’t allow HTTP as it’s less secure and more prone to attacks.
Also read: How to fix SSL_Connect_Error?
Update your TLS version
If your web server uses an older version of TLS, you need to upgrade your TLS/SSL library to support the latest standard. While your hosting provider should automatically implement this, updating the library manually shouldn’t be too much of a hassle if you see the error.
You will need to contact your hosting provider for the exact steps.
Remove any third-party firewalls
If you’re using any other firewalls apart from the default Windows one, chances are it’s sending an RST to your browser to terminate the attempted connection between the browser and the web server.
Try disabling or removing the firewall to check if the browser works without one. If it does, either remove the firewall or add an exception for Firefox in the firewall settings.
Also read: How to fix “error occurred during initialisation of boot layer” in Eclipse?
