The SDMB is switching to HTTPS

[zweisamkeit]

I can’t access the boards on Tapatalk (for Win10). Nothing loads at all (even the side menu with subscribed, forums, private messages, etc). Other boards, including Giraffe’s load just fine.

[Melbourne]

Can’t get in with HTTP at all today. This is a problem for me.

[dtilque]

@Senegoid

Preaching to the converted, are we? As a matter of fact, this machine is running Linux. (ETA: Fuck Windows!) The box itself is about 10+ years old, has all of ONE Gig of memory (almost), Ubuntu Ver. 9.10, Firefox is about equally as old. Last time I tried upgrading (several years ago), it crashed incessantly (some hardware incompatibility apparently), so I re-installed everything that I had just wiped out and haven’t upgraded anything for years.

I’m running Ubuntu on a much newer laptop, but last year I had a similar problem. Somewhere around May, it started crashing every time I booted. But I found a workaround that let me keep upgrading. Maybe something similar will work for you.

It seems that Ubuntu loads several different versions every time I update. If I hit escape when booting, I can go through the BIOS (or whatever they’re calling it these days) and load one of those versions. And that doesn’t crash. It’s a minor annoyance, but workable.

[BigT]

I’m not having any problems, but I cam getting redirected to HTTPS now. Before I could switch back if I changed the URL, but now it seems I can’t.

It seems sad for a site that has maintained backwards compatibility for so long to lose it, especially if people still depend on it. And older devices don’t support the newer HTTPS certificates.

I mean, this site still worked fine on Internet Explorer 6, last I checked. As in, I could log in on Windows 98 with the default browser. I could also read stuff on my Kindle 2, even if I couldn’t log in.

[BigT]

@gnoitall

I’d be willing to bet extravagant sums of money that I don’t have that the non-secure content is advertising. So going HTTPS and refusing to load non-secure content is basically adblocking. As side effects go, it’s not bad.

I would never trust ads running in HTTP on an HTTPS site, anyways. It weakens the security aspect if the ads can be served from insecure URLs.

And it is pretty bad if it ads a popup asking you every time.

[BigT]

@dtilque

I’m running Ubuntu on a much newer laptop, but last year I had a similar problem. Somewhere around May, it started crashing every time I booted. But I found a workaround that let me keep upgrading. Maybe something similar will work for you.

It seems that Ubuntu loads several different versions every time I update. If I hit escape when booting, I can go through the BIOS (or whatever they’re calling it these days) and load one of those versions. And that doesn’t crash. It’s a minor annoyance, but workable.

You should be able to change the boot menu settings to make the default be the best of those additional options. I don’t know what boot manager Ubuntu uses, but look into it. It will likely simply be a text file you’d need to alter.

It’s generally pretty hard to screw up that file enough that you can’t boot at all, but, if you’re worried, make a backup copy of the text file (which you should do anyways in case you don’t like the changes), and, if you can’t boot, boot up the live CD and put the file back.

[Senegoid]

@Senegoid

This site works well enough for me, as long as I stick with http:// — many other sites don’t. So, TPTB of the Dope please leave bad enough alone and don’t fix anything even worse than it already it!

Well, that was then. I guess hardly a day or two after I posted the above, TPTB went and did that, and now SDMB is history to me. My browser can no longer open any SDMB pages, not even for just lurking. Now I can only view this board when I happen to be at the library, which may only happen once or twice a month, if that. I’m not going to make special trips to the library just to read SDMB. So I guess y’all won’t have Senegoid to kick around (much) any more.