Some pages (including sometimes facebook or google) give me a grey triangle with an exclamation point in the lefthand corner of the URL box instead of padlock.
Over the past few weeks, I've noticed that I sometimes get a grey triangle with an exclamation point in the lefthand corner of the URL box, instead of a typical firefox icon (ie green padlock or globe). When clicking on the triangle, it says that the website does not supply identity information and may not be secure. This happens sometimes when I open facebook, or google, or even a mozilla support page (I have a screenshot, if someone can tell me how to attach it here). However, it doesn't happen every time I open those pages, or on every site. What's going on, and how do I fix this?
All Replies (4)
This is a little confusing because there are two different types of information mixed together:
(1) Not supplying identity information: this indicates that there is a certificate, but it is an ordinary certificate and not an EVSSL (green lock) certificate. Same as a gray padlock, as far as the main page goes.
(2) Gray exclamation-triangle: this indicates that that the page contains "mixed" content. More specifically, although the page was retrieved through an encrypted connection (HTTPS) with a valid certificate, something in the page was retrieved over an open connection.
To discover the non-secure content, you can look in Firefox's Browser Console:
- Mac: Command+Shift+j
- Windows: Ctrl+Shift+j
- Menu Bar: Tools > Web Developer > Browser Console
- (Win) orange Firefox button > Web Developer > Browser Console
Once you have that open, you likely will see lots of stuff. To filter the list, tpe mix into the search/filter box at the upper right.
At this point — have I lost you yet? — you can decide whether you are concerned about the non-secure content. For example, perhaps it's something from the same site that they mistakenly forgot to serve with an HTTPS URL. (Screen shot example attached.) But, you may discover that it's from a different site and then you can start to assess whether there might be something suspicious going on with the page. If you start seeing a pattern, perhaps one of your extensions is injecting advertising into the pages... or worse.
I, too, have noticed this problem with https://www.google.com. Sometimes I get the padlock when I visit Google, sometimes I get the exclamation triangle. It seems random. If I click on the exclamation point, I see:
This website does not supply identity information. The connection to this website is not fully secure because it contains unencrypted elements (such as images).
I tried the instructions above to use the browser console, and there is absolutely nothing matching "mix". So what's going on?
Hi markb1024, if you could, keep an eye on this problem and see whether there is a pattern with using the Back button on Google.
The way Firefox's caching system works seems to be slightly broken with Google's "instant prediction" results (the default kind of results) and that may contribute to a mixed content warning when you go back (dipping into the cache) to a results page.
More background on this thought: ssl goes mix content on google after pressing back button?
It does seem to happen upon using the back button, though it still seems random. I just noticed the problem on https://twitter.com today, too.