This site can't provide a secure connection..... what to do ?

A Former User

I frequently get the folowing message when trying to access sites (e.g. blservices.com and many others) :

This site can’t provide a secure connection
blservices.com uses an unsupported protocol.
The client and server don't support a common SSL protocol version or cipher suite. This is likely to be caused when the server needs RC4, which is no longer considered secure.

I use Windows XP and Opera 36. What to do? Is there a way to be reaching the sites without changing operating system?

Thanks in advance for helpful suggestions.

A Former User @Guest

@nityananda The site uses newer protocols that are not supported by your old version of Opera in order for support of the newer protocols you need 2 things

1: Upgrade your OS ( windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10)
2: Upgrade to the latest version of Opera

Problem solved stop flogging a dead horse in Win XP it's old and is no longer supported by either Microsoft or Opera

blackbird71

blackbird71 @Guest

@nityananda If you look at
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd125380(v=ws.10).aspx you will find a table of key exchange protocols and integrity algorithms for various Windows operating systems (through Win7). When a secure website (https) presents a site certificate that calls out a particular key exchange scheme used to authenticate only that site and your system for encrypting data flow between them, if that exchange scheme isn't represented in the table for your OS, that means your OS cannot provide the ability to set up authenticated communications with the site in order to securely move data to/from the site... hence, the site won't work.

The Bhaktivedanta site presents a certificate specifying a signature algorithm of sha256ECDSA, which implies a SHA256 integrity algorithm and an ECD (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman) key exchange protocol. From the table, you will see that neither of these are available in Windows XP, hence they can't be used by browsers running on a WinXP system. This is true even if a browser itself could 'support' the particular signature algorithm capability, since browsers actually use the OS's encryption services. 'Elliptic curve encryption' of various kinds was developed in more recent years to increase the resistance of the encrypted data to machine code-cracking and compromise, and many websites are moving to one of its variants for better security.

This is the unfortunate nature of obsolescence: it freezes something in time. Hence, later developments will often be incompatible with it, and the number of incompatibilities will only grow with the passage of time.

A Former User @blackbird71

@nityananda
If you really can't upgrade from XP for any reason, I would recommend that you use Firefox 52ESR, at least for the problem sites.
That still works on XP and should be supported at least until next summer.
I've not seen it fail on any site yet because of a security problem.

zalex108

zalex108 @Guest

@nityananda

If you can, consider to upgrade at least to Windows 7.

Windows 10 (x64) | Anniversary Update
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"You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the power that created you". · Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @Guest

@davehawley said in This site can't provide a secure connection..... what to do ?:

I would recommend that you use Firefox 52ESR, at least for the problem sites.
That still works on XP and should be supported at least until next summer.

And, since Firefox use its own network stack instead of the system's, there's a good chance it'll work. (Didn't know if you personally tested or not)