14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla is constantly working on improving its product, and in Firefox 44, along with the planned deprecation of the RC4 cipher, the company is also overhauling its SSL error pages.
Added in Firefox 33, these pages were used to signal users of a failed SSL connection attempt, one that might have put their personal data at risk.
While useful in some cases, the error pages also prevented users from accessing some URLs, which they were sure were secure, and not harboring any attacks.
These were the cases with old router configuration pages or websites that implemented insecure cryptography practices, which weren't updated to the latest standards and sometimes weren't even accessible to external connections.
Firefox's built-in error page prevented users from accessing these pages altogether, and many were forced to use browsers like Chrome, Safari, or IE, which, despite showing the same warning message, enabled them to skip it and access the site, regardless.
The new SSL errors allow users to skip the warning and access the site at their own risk
Now, the Firefox devs are working on a revamped error screen for security certificate errors, which will be added to the same version in which the RC4 crypto cipher is planned to be removed.
Bram Pitoyo, one of Mozilla's designers, provided three samples for the upcoming error pages. This is the default message, with the "Go to site" link showing after the user pressed the "Advanced" button.
There's also a custom error message for when sites are using the older and outdated RC4 cipher, and one for severe certificate errors, which only alerts the user of the detected problems but does not provide the option to navigate to the site, as the previous two do.
As you can see from the mockups, once the user navigates to the insecure sites, a warning bar is also added at the top of the site, right under the Firefox UI.
Tip: In case you want to be able to skip SSL error pages in current Firefox versions, gHacks has a hack around this issue.
