Browser Security News

Web browsers are such an important and, by now, mature application, you’d think they’d have error messages down. But in fact they’re pretty bad at them. Even routine errors like mistyped addresses present messages that are confusing to novices. The Web is simple when everything works right. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. One of the more confusing subjects to explain when things go wrong is SSL. IE7 made some improvements in this area, and the Mozilla Group is working on making Firefox 3 easier to deal with in error conditions.

Both browsers support EV (Extended Validation) certificates, which are a new class of SSL certificates. EV certs are very expensive certificates issued only to incorporated organizations after actual background checks. To some extent, older versions of SSL were supposed to do the same thing, but over the years laziness and price wars diminished the authoritativeness of the older SSL regime. So you might say that EV certs represent a "do-over" for the trusted certificate industry. Browsers and SSL Support