Sciforums outage or problems

In this instance, it's not so much an outage as browsers blocking access to it because there's something suspicious about the site. In conjunction with that, it's also been displaying "no members online" for a while. (It can be accessed via bypassing the security risk.) Occasionally, an individual browser will get obstinate due to SF's lack of either HTTPS. But this event involves all of them simultaneously refusing to go there (Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Opera, etc).

I just tried to visit it and got one of those browser warnings. I bypassed it and then got a 'page could not be loaded' message.

Certification for HTTPS needs to be kept up to date.

It usually costs to maintain and sometimes rarely the certifiers can been flag as dodgy which then leads to all certs issued by them to no longer be "secure".

The Certs just tell the browsers whether a site is trusted, at least in regards to trying to have been cryptographs between endpoints. (This is especially important if there is any potential of plaintext information being transmitted.)

It's possible to use a proxy to navigate the site, as they will tend to have their own HTTPS connection which will be certified. (The browser picks up on the first hop for it's certification, not the subsiquent rewrite of the source who's cert might be insecure)

Just remember though not to login through a proxy as it will expose the proxy to any passwords you use.

(May 17, 2026 08:29 PM)Yazata Wrote: I just tried to visit it and got one of those browser warnings. I bypassed it and then got a 'page could not be loaded' message.

As Stryder said, the bypass probably worked for me because Opera has a built-in VPN. In contrast, Firefox didn't offer any options at all (though it also has its own VPN now, but requires a sign-up to activate it).

LOL Monkey-rigged duct-taped shack of a website..

Seems to be back now without the security block.

Down again. Having yet another one of its expired certificate episodes.

EDIT (hours later): Finally back up.

Down again. Although this time some browsers will grudgingly allow one to access the "unsafe site" if the user persists. According to James R, the certificate expired in December of last year, so if ownership hasn't done anything since then, it may be on its last leg.

(Aug 16, 2026 07:24 PM)C C Wrote: Down again. Although this time some browsers will grudgingly allow one to access the "unsafe site" if the user persists. According to James R, the certificate expired in December of last year, so if ownership hasn't done anything since then, it may be on its last leg.

This one too
https://scienceforums.net/discover/

Pretentious scientism echo chamber...good riddance.