Security Warning

In Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (MSIE 8), if you get a warning like this...

Do you want to view only the web page content that was delivered securely?

In Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (MSIE 9) it looks like this on the bottom of the browser window...

...this means the web page that you are trying to open has secure content (https:) and non-secure content (http:) in the same page. This is not a serious security concern and is usually the result of the web page trying to display images or run a script from another server.

 

You may click Yes if you are concerned about security in MSIE 8 (or click on the x in MSIE 9), but I think that it is not necessary. Doing so will make the non-secured images show up blank similar to this...

Example of a blocked image.

 

You may click No if you trust that everything on the web page is appropriate in MSIE 8 (or click on Show All Content button in MSIE 9). Doing so will make the non-secured images show up normally.

 

If you are getting tired of this (like I am) then you can tell Microsoft Internet Explorer to allow you to see all images like these without asking. Doing so, however, makes you vulnerable to tracking by images and pfishing schemes if you visit untrustworthy web sites. For me, I do not care if I am tracked by these things.

 

How to Turn Off the Mixed Content Warning

Do this only if you feel confident that you can do this correctly and if you feel that this is not an important security risk for you. If you decide to do the following steps and mess things up, you can always reset to default and everything should go back to normal.

  1. From Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to Internet Options...





  2. From Internet Options, go to Security, Internet, then Custom Level...





  3. From Custom Level, go to Settings and under Miscellaneous, set Display Mixed Content to Enable...





  4. Click OK. When asked to confirm your changes, click Yes. Finally, click OK to make the changes.


After doing these modifications, you should not get the security warning and all images should appear properly.

 

How to Reset the Mixed Content Warning

If you ever want to reset the mixed content warning, just follow these instructions, but select Prompt instead of Enable for the Display Mixed Content...

If you mess things up a lot and want to reset everything to default, you have these options...

 

RP Info
Fall 2011