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Why does Firefox put www in front of the domain name?

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When I type my website in the bar, firefox puts www in front of it, which causes the warning page: firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to www.karinchappell.com. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details.

If I remove the www by backspacing it, the page loads correctly.

I've checked the website: "SSL is enabled on your site, and an SSL certificate was detected on your site."

When I've asked around the techies I know, I've been told this is an antiquated way of dealing with it. Please advise.

When I type my website in the bar, firefox puts www in front of it, which causes the warning page: firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to www.karinchappell.com. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details. If I remove the www by backspacing it, the page loads correctly. I've checked the website: "SSL is enabled on your site, and an SSL certificate was detected on your site." When I've asked around the techies I know, I've been told this is an antiquated way of dealing with it. Please advise.

All Replies (1)

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Hmm, how did you get to that screen? If I start with

http://karinchappell.com/

after a couple seconds it redirects to:

https://karinchappell.com/

If I start with the URL on your Bio page

http://www.karinchappell.com/

it redirects to

https://karinchappell.com/

So far, so good.

If I turn on Firefox's HTTPS-Only feature, then instead of checking whether the www site will redirect, Firefox shows the HTTPS-Only Mode Alert screen. It sounds like you are not getting that screen. (More info on that feature in this article: HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox.)

So if your Firefox is using an entry from history, there shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure why Firefox thinks it should combine the https and the www. ??