Guide: How to Get the Green Lock Icon Back on Firefox Browser
If you regularly use email at work, online banking, and other such essential services, you probably always check for the HTTPS protocol or the green lock icon in the URL of the website. More often than not, the padlock icon indicates that the connection between your browser and the server is safe and secure, and this is what most people check for when online. For Firefox users, the new version of the web browser will display a gray padlock icon instead of the previously used green padlock for secure HTTPS sites. We will explain why this happened and how to get the green lock icon back in Firefox. Since the browser is available on all major desktop platforms, you can try it out on Windows, macOS, and even Linux.
Why Firefox replaced the green lock icon
Newer versions of the Mozilla Firefox 70 web browser release come with updates to the security and privacy indicators in the URL bar. This change is reflected in the gray padlock icon that replaced the usual previous green padlock in the address bar. While it’s only a minor color change, most users were used to the more visible green padlock, but Mozilla’s developer team preferred to fix the latter for secure sites. Mozilla believes there is an ongoing prevalence of privacy threats on the Internet, which is why they have shipped new technologies to protect their users from tracking. The updated user interface is no longer a way to identify website security, but what they say is “a step towards treating secure HTTPS as the default transport method for websites” with an emphasis on user privacy.
What do the different padlock icons mean?
Traditionally, a secure site, that is, any website delivered through secure transport mechanisms, had a green lock icon in the Firefox address bar. All other sites delivered through insecure means only had the information icon but no additional security indicators. In the Firefox 70 release, some of the changes include showing padlock icons in different colors, some plain, others with a line or warning sign, and they have different meanings.
For insecure login pages, a crossed out lock icon is displayed as a permanent indicator of sites being served through insecure protocols. The initial green lock icon has changed to a gray icon that emphasizes unsafe or dropped connections, rather than the default (secure) connection. The information icon has also been removed, which means that the lock icon contains the identity and security information of a website. Such information includes whether the site is encrypted or who owns it, along with their location, so you can avoid malicious sites attempting to steal your sensitive or personal information.
In rare cases, you may see a gray padlock with a red stroke over it or a yellow warning triangle. The padlock with the red stroke on it indicates a partially encrypted connection between the website and Firefox, and this does not prevent man-in-the-middle attacks or eavesdropping. If you see a gray padlock with a yellow warning triangle next to it, the connection between the site and Firefox is also partially encrypted and eavesdropping will not occur. It also means that the site’s certificate is either self-signed or not from a trusted authority.
How to Restore the old green lock icon in Firefox
Mozilla’s development team has not deprecated the option to fix the green lock icon after replacing it with a gray one, so you can get it back by following a few steps. There are built-in configuration options you can use and the change will be applied immediately without having to restart your browser. Step 1: In the address bar of Firefox, open a new tab and type about: config in the address bar. You will be presented with a warning screen indicating that the action you are about to take could void your warranty. Confirm that you are sure what you are doing by clicking on the blue ‘I accept the risk’ button
Step 2: At the top, type security.secure_connection_icon_color_gray in the search box.
Step 3: In the new window, under Value, switch it from TRUE to FALSE. To do this, right-click TRUE and select Swap. It will immediately turn to FALSE.
Go back to the address bar and you will see that all HTTPS sites or those using secure connections will now have a green padlock icon again.
To restore the gray padlock icon, repeat the steps but return the value to TRUE.
How to Display not secure for non-HTTPS sites
If you’d rather Firefox show “Not Secure” for sites that don’t use HTTPS instead of just showing a crossed out padlock icon, you can add this text to the address bar using these steps. Step 1: Open a new tab and type about: config in the address bar. Type security.insecure_connection_text.enable in the search bar to bring up the proper setting.
Step 2: Under Value, set the preference from FALSE to TRUE to enable ‘non-secure’ text. Do this by right-clicking the value and selecting Swap. You can turn it off by repeating these steps.
Note: You can also do this for private browsing connections. You must type security.insecure_connection_text.pbmode.enabled in the search bar and set the value accordingly.
Give me the green light We hope you know now how to find the green padlock icon back in the address bar of your Firefox browser. We’re not sure how long this will take, so it’s best to get used to seeing the gray icon so you can distinguish the unsafe sites from the secure ones. The next up Tired of using extensions to block websites and trackers? Our next article will show you how to block these and other annoyances like cryptominers or fingerprint thieves without extensions.
How to Get the Green Lock Icon Back on Firefox Browser: benefits
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