Visualize blue https sites in Firefox 3 in a better way

Firefox 3 introduced a new coloring scheme and design for secure websites. You might remember that Firefox 2 displayed a yellow url bar when the user was accessing a https site. This changed drastically in Firefox 3 which is now displaying blue, yellow and green colors in the favicon area on the left side of the url.

To give you a practical example: If you visit https://www.paypal.com/ you notice a large green bar in the favicon area that is displaying the name of the owner of the website. A visit of https://www.amazon.com/ on the other hand is displaying a smaller blue bar around the favicon. Both are secure websites but one is dominant while the other is barely visible.

This can be changed in Firefox 3 so that the url of the website is displayed in the favicon are as well. To do that type in about:config in the Firefox 3 location bar and filter for the term browser.identity.ssl_domain_display. You can change that term to the following values:

• 0 – the default value.
• 1 – the top level domain is also painted in blue. e.g. ghacks.net
• 2 – all of the domain is painted in blue, e.g. www.ghacks.net

I set mine to the value 2 so that the complete domain name is shown in the favicon area.

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Tags: firefox 3, firefox config, firefox security, firefox tips, firefox-tweaks
Categories: Browsing, firefox

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8 Responses to “Visualize blue https sites in Firefox 3 in a better way”

1. Transcontinental says:

   June 22, 2008 at 12:51 pm

   Nice tip, logical, and security related. Thanks
2. Scott Walsh says:

   June 22, 2008 at 3:41 pm

   I was curious about the differences between the blue & green, so I looked it up. If anyone else is curious:

   http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article23974.html
   (paragraphs 4 & 5)

   Also, it looks like they use blue & green only; they stopped using yellow because IE7 uses yellow to indicate “…a suspected phishing website.”

   Additional info about the Site Identification Button: http://www.dria.org/wordpress/archives/2008/05/06/635/
3. Nosh says:

   June 22, 2008 at 4:20 pm

   Nice tip. Thank you, Martin. :)
4. Kane says:

   June 22, 2008 at 6:13 pm

   Does anyone know how to turn this into stylish code? Thanks
5. Ameet says:

   June 23, 2008 at 9:30 pm

   stylish code:

   #urlbar[level] .autocomplete-textbox-container > * {
   background-color: #D0F2C4 !important;
   }

   This one is for green.
6. -=Ben=- says:

   October 18, 2008 at 4:39 am

   Thanks Martin, you are the best

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

1. KC8DNE.com » Better IDs for HTTP Sites in Firefox 3 says:

   June 24, 2008 at 4:03 pm

   [...] Firefox 3 introduced a new coloring scheme and design for secure websites. You might remember that Firefox 2 displayed a yellow URL bar when the user was accessing a https site. This changed drastically in Firefox 3 which is now displaying blue, yellow and green colors in the favicon area on the left side of the URL. (Read more) [...]
2. Making Secure Sites More Prominent in Firefox | bT Square Peg :: News says:

   April 25, 2009 at 3:48 pm

   [...] see how it’s done, go to :: ghacks.net Saturday, 25th April 2009 [General | Software] [...]