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sec_error_unknown_issuer on sites without intermediate certs

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by philipp

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Why in this day and age is this still an issue with Firefox alone. Sites that do not have the intermediate cert installed, cause an error in Firefox (sec_error_unknown_issuer). I understand the technical reason why this happens, but my question is why doesn't the Firefox foundation do something about it? The sites are not inherently insecure and to the user you are making it look like it is.

All of the sites correctly work in every other modern day browser: IE11, Safari 8, Chrome (43) except Firefox. Why would all of those other browser make the decision to allow it, but not Firefox?

Why in this day and age is this still an issue with Firefox alone. Sites that do not have the intermediate cert installed, cause an error in Firefox (sec_error_unknown_issuer). I understand the technical reason why this happens, but my question is why doesn't the Firefox foundation do something about it? The sites are not inherently insecure and to the user you are making it look like it is. All of the sites correctly work in every other modern day browser: IE11, Safari 8, Chrome (43) except Firefox. Why would all of those other browser make the decision to allow it, but not Firefox?

All Replies (3)

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hello, it is necessary to have a full link from a server certificate to the certificate authorities in the browser's root trust store - otherwise the whole cert system won't work. what solutions would you propose?

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Why cannot it be solved in the same manner as: IE11, Safari 8, Chrome (43) ?

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the reason why mozilla isn't going this approach is explained in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=399324