When you see the shield icon in the address bar, it means that Firefox for Android has blocked content that is insecure on the page you're visiting. We'll explain what that means and what options you have.

What is mixed content?

When you visit a page served over HTTP, your connection is open for eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks. Most websites are served over HTTP because they don't involve passing sensitive information back and forth and do not need to be secured. When you visit a page fully served over HTTPS (you see a gray padlock



or you see a green padlock



in the address bar), like your bank, your connection is authenticated and encrypted and hence safeguarded from eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks.

However, if the HTTPS page you visit includes HTTP content, the HTTP portion can be read or modified by attackers, even though the main page is served over HTTPS. When an HTTPS page has HTTP content, we call that content “mixed”. The page you are visiting is only partially encrypted and even though it appears to be secure, it isn't.

The Mixed Content Blocker blocks potentially harmful HTTP content on HTTPS pages.

What options do I have?

Most websites will continue to work normally without any action on your part.

If you need to allow the mixed content to be displayed, you can do that easily:

• Tap the shield icon in the address bar and a menu will drop down. Tap Disable protection on the lower left of this menu.
  
  • The icon in the address bar will change to an orange warning triangle to remind you that insecure content is being displayed.

To revert the previous action (re-block mixed content), just reload the page.