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Shain AllenFlag for United States of America

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IE and secure websites

if a "secure" webiste doesn't have the little lock icon on the bottom of IE window but the Address starts off with "https://" does it mean that the website isn't secure?
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jhance

It's unclear to me what's going on.  Normally when you're connected via https you will get the lock icon.  If you click on the icon it should display the credentials (i.e. the security certificate) of the remote site.

If you are seeing https but NO lock, then I'd suspect funny business and would be very cautious.
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ISoul
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Okay, thanks. Sounds like a reasonable answer and makes sense too.
Thank you. =)

Just to add to my comment more, I found a page that has that exact behaviour...

https://www.eqo.com/

When you go to it via https, Internet Explorer gives a pop-up warning: "This page contains both secure and nonsecure items. Do you want to display the nonsecure items?"

Clicking to get more information, it shows:

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Downloading non-secure content from a secure Web site

The Web site you are viewing is a secure site. It uses a security protocol such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or PCT (Private Communications Technology) to secure the information you send and receive.
When sites use a security protocol, information that you provide, such as your name or credit-card number, is encrypted so that other people can’t read it. However, this Web page also contains items that do not use this secure protocol.
Given what you know about this Web site and your computer, you must decide whether to continue working with this site.

If you do not feel confident about working with this site, click No.
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And indeed, the page does in fact have non-secure elements such as a Flash file linked from http instead of https.
very cool!!! This helps a lot