Why is the site “not secure”?

[JoeAwesome]

So I’ve seen this on my phone for months, but now I’m seeing ads which could indicate 3rd party activity. What going on?

[MrPopo]

Generally, "not secure" in a browser means that you're visiting a site over http, not https. Browsers can't actually determine if a website is well coded or not, but https at least means you're reasonably safe from man-in-the-middle attacks. It looks like, unlike some other websites, Racketboy isn't configured to automatically redirect http traffic to https (you can try this by hitting http Google and see what I'm talking about). All the actual website links use https, so any link you click should cause it to no longer show "not secure". But it looks like the forum software itself uses relative links, so if you landed on the forums with http then you'll stay there.

[Ziggy]

Also I've noticed, for some reason Norton Safe Web has caution status for this site. According to Norton, "Websites rated "Caution" may have a small number of threats and annoyances, but are not considered dangerous enough to warrant a red "Warning". Proceed with caution. The Norton rating is a result of NortonLifeLock's automated analysis system."

[Jagosaurus]

Agree with what's been said. Would normally add in certificates & their annual renewals issued by a CA. These cost site admins/owners money but likely at mercy of hosting here. Could potentially be related on them. I'm on Android with some cert settings toggled off purposefully for work reasons.

Is anyone else seeing adds though? That is strange Joe. Nothing on my side.

Also worth noting a few months back, Chrome notified me RB was part of a security breach regarding passwords. It notified me of multiple sites at once so assuming a forum/web hosting service was hit. I'd recommend changing your PW and others if you run shared UN & PWs across multiple platforms/services.

[JoeAwesome]

All the actual website links use https, so any link you click should cause it to no longer show "not secure".

Yep. Went to main site, reloaded for https, then went to the forum using the link provided there. That fixed it.

[ElkinFencer10]

It's because the subterranean lizard people are using Racketboy to access your bank accounts and siphon money to fund their global domination plans (which, of course, are carried out through the UN under the guise of international cooperation).

[Anapan]

I'm guilty of this. A couple of times I figured out how to renew my certificates with godaddy and it went away, but I'm not too concerned about this so my site has been like this for almost 2 years. If you are bothered you can choose to not visit my site. You'd miss out on my awesome content tho.

[racketboy]

From my perspective, I haven't spent the extra money on a SSL certificate for the site.

In response to one mention above, I don't believe we've ever had a data leak, but I know some passwords in accounts (including my own, in the past) have been leaked in other data breaches elsewhere.

[marurun]

Just use a Let's Encrypt certificate and force HTTPS and then you don't have to pay any extra.

[8bit]

marurun is on to something. zerossl.com is another site that can generate free SSL certificates.