Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Technical Help and How To's Trouble accessing Archive website

Hey there,

As of recently, I find myself unable to access the LC fanfic archive website. Instead, I only get a failure notice. I tried it multiple times with two different browsers (Chorme and Brave).

The message I get, rughly translated, is:
This Website can't create a safe connection.
lcfanfic.com uses a non-supported protocol.
(And after klicking the details button, additionally:
Nonsupported protocol
Client and server don't support a common SSL-protocol-version or encryption collection).

Anyone else having trouble there, or any ideas what's going on?

The archive doesn't have an ssl certificate, which means that it's an unsecured connection. Most modern web browsers and internet security suites freak out when this happens. You can often bypass their issues by confirming that you do actually want to proceed there, but it can take some wading through prompts.

I'm not sure how to help you if there are no prompts to wade through. Perhaps try a different browser?

Hi BlindPassenger

PuffyTiger already explained it pretty well (Thanks!)

Chrome has started to enforce HTTPS-first (https://blog.chromium.org/2023/08/towards-https-by-default.html) but they *should* fall back to HTTP. I have also just checked this with a current (Chrome v118) and it does simply fall back to the HTTP location after attempting HTTPS.

I don't know about Brave as a browser but from the docs (https://brave.com/privacy-updates/22-https-by-default/) it appears to use a similar approach.

It could also be that you have an extension installed that forces HTTPS on every URL? I don't think a screenreader is interfering.

There is one other option: in Chrome settings (chrome://settings/security?search=https) at "Privacy and Security" you have "Always use secure connections". If you enable that flag, you're forcing the browser to require HTTPS on every website. Maybe you enabled that one by accident?

Lastly: you could try using a fresh profile (https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop) and retry it from there.

Hope one of these options helps!

Michael

PS: once the question's resolved I'll move it over to "Technical Help and How To's"

Thank the both of you for your replies!
The adress that my browser automatically used is indeed https://lcfanfic.com. When I tried to erase the "s" bit from the adress-line, http://lcfanfic.com works fine. Weird...ah whatever, I'll take it!

Oops, sorry to put that in the wrong location :-)

Hi BlindPassenger,

glad we could help! As to the reason why? Secure defaults combined with autocompletion, I guess. In the olden days, the browser may have automatically retried with HTTP when HTTPS didn't work but was explicitly specified. Those days are now gone. If you Bookmark it, this might solve future issues since the autocomplete might (and I do mean *might*) pick the HTTP-only bookmark when you enter the address in the location bar.

Michael

(you're welcome, Michael)

I'm pleased you've figured it out, BlindPassenger! Read on!

Thanks and will do!