About certificates
A certificate is a bit of code that keeps communications secure. It's also known as a digital certificate and a public key certificate.
Certificates are issued by trusted organizations, such as VeriSign, Inc. or RSA Security, Inc, or Thawte, Inc. When you go to a secure webpage--for example, to do online banking -- QtWeb checks the site's certificate and compares it with certificates that are known to be legitimate. If QtWeb doesn't recognize the website's certificate, or if the site doesn't have one, QtWeb will let you know.
A secure website and QtWeb work together to encrypt any information you exchange with the site. The key used for the encryption is contained in the site's security certificate. No one can read the information as it's being sent. This protects your login information, credit card numbers, addresses, and other secure data.
If SSL certificate has been successfully verified by QtWeb, webpage URL is displayed on the light-green background. If there were some SSL errors while certificate verification - QtWeb displays these errors and draws URL on the pink background, advising you that this certificate is not reliable (unverified by trusted authorities). Errors could happen in different scenarios, for example certificate is expired or certificate is self-generated (for development or testing purposes) but not certified, etc... SSL errors do not mean that connection is not secure! Https connection is 100% secure, however the host you are trying to connect to has not been registered or verified with trusted organizations.
If you need to connect to a website that requires a personal certificate, you'll be provided with a certificate and instructions for installing it. Once your certificate is installed, you can gain authenticated access to the website automatically. If you are unable to access the website, contact the website administrator.
To view and manage certificates, choose Start > Control Panel, click Network and Internet, and then click Internet Options. In Internet Options click the Content tab.