I know that a padlock usually means a https page. But recently I've been seeing a crossed-out padlock when I browse the forums without being logged in. As soon as I log in, it switches briefly to a normal padlock and https:// and then I get a normal display without any padlock.

What's going on here?

Just as a general note, the crossed-out padlock means that the web page is serving mixed content (some of the content being served by the page is not encrypted).

This is very common if a page is serving external resources (ads etc.) which are served unencrypted on an otherwise-encrypted page. However I don't know whether or not this is the case for LQ.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...tion-is-secure

I should point out that after logging in, my version of Firefox (51.0.1) gives me the solid green padlock for LQ, so something may be going awry with your setup. Do you have any extensions that may be setting https:// back to http://?

The newest firefox versions show the lock with red strikeout if the current http page contains a password field. They do this to show that extra-sensitive information might be sent unencrypted.

I can reproduce what you saw on http://www.linuxquestions.org/ without login.
But when you load https://www.linuxquestions.org/, all is fine because the whole site is secured. Change your bookmarks to https://

Maybe linuxquestions should remove the http site/replace by an automatic redirection to https.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the info, cepheus11. I didn't know that about the red strikeout. Useful indicator.