How to fix “Your connection is not private” error in Chrome

Are you looking for the solution to fix the “Your connection is not private” message that you keep getting in Google Chrome or Android while accessing a particular website or a few other websites?

The error you get reads “NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID”?

If yes, then you have landed to correct the article. In this post, I’ll explain everything about this error like what is this error all about, what causes this error, and how we may try different tips & tricks to fix this error.

Today people are becoming lazy and try to do most of the work on the internet sitting comfortably at their home.

Whether you have to pay your electricity or mobile phone bill or have to buy any product, you log on to a different website and do the task.

The internet has made the life of humans easy but something that has advantages must have disadvantages as well.

To link it to the internet world, if you can pay electricity bills through the internet sitting comfortably at your home using a credit card or digital wallet, you are likely to have security threats as well such as leakage of your credit card information or digital wallet’s password.

To address these security threats, companies like Google, Apple keep on inventing new technologies so that we could at least minimize such threats and keep sensitive information safe.

The error message “Your connection is not private” that you keep getting while accessing some of the websites (mainly those where financial transactions are made) is caused due to lack of one of the technologies that secure your online transactions and keep your sensitive information such as credit card information private.

What is “Your connection is not private” error all about?

New technology is created every day to improve the way we transact on the internet.

There is a great possibility of phishing or leakage of users’ sensitive information such as Credit/Debit Card information while performing the transaction on the internet.

To avoid or at least minimize such incidents, there are several security measures that websites have to take into account.

One of those security measures is securing the website with an SSL certificate. The error “Your connection is not private” generally caused due to misconfiguration or expiry of the SSL certificate issued to the website.

SSL certificate is issued by the Domain Registrar Or Web hosting service provider or any other third party to the website owners (webmaster) which secures their websites.

It is very important for an online shopping website (e-commerce website) to get an SSL certificate.

The SSL certificate keeps all the information that users (like you and me or someone who wants to transact on this website) enter, such as Credit/Debit Card number, expiry date, CVV number, or any personally identifiable information secured and private.

Here when a consumer like you or me makes a purchase, we open the merchant’s website and enter our personal details, such as name, address, phone number, email, and then move to make payment. We make the payment either through credit/debit card or digital wallet etc.

If you look at the diagram closely, you will know the connection between the consumer’s computer and MERCHANT’s is secured through an SSL certificate. That means, no third person can see consumer information.

Also read: How to take screenshot in Windows

Once the merchant receives an order, it checks with the clearinghouse, and the clearinghouse checks with the consumer’s card issuing bank whether the details the consumer has entered are correct and if he/she can make the purchase.

Once it is verified, the consumer issuing bank credits Merchant’s bank gives clearing house a go and issues a payment statement to the consumer.

If the connection between a consumer and a merchant’s computer is not secured through an SSL certificate, there are high chances, the details of consumers get compromised and I need not tell anyone can do if he/she gets to know my credit card details.

How to fix this error “Your connection is not private”

The error “Your connection is not private” has had to do with the SSL certificate. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) keeps the information that you enter on any website secured and private.

Any third party (person) wouldn’t be able to see the information.

Hence if whenever you open any website and see this error, you better leave the website and look for an alternative. It becomes very important for the website for online shopping websites.

How to fix

Check out the below methods to fix the “Your connection is not private” Error

1) Date & Time

One of the reasons why you could see this error is due to the inaccurately configured device’s time and date. Inaccurately configured time and date gives SSL error that can be fixed once you rightly configure the date and time.

Accurately configure Time & Date on Mac as below:

Configure Time and Date accurately on Windows as below:

2) Expired SSL certificate

In some cases, the webmaster or the owner of the website forgets to renew the SSL certificate which causes this error.

The SSL Certificate is purchased for 1 year or 2 years and so on and has to renew before expiry.

If that is the case, what at the most you can do is to notify the same webmaster. Alternatively, you can click the “Advanced” option at the bottom and “Proceed to website”.

You don’t have to worry much as long as you are just checking out the website and not making any transactions or entering personal information.

3) Clean Google Chrome browser cookies

The other possible reason for causing this error is invalid Google Chrome’s cookies. Deleting the browser’s cookie and cached files may fix this problem. Here is how you can do that:

Click those three dots on the top right corner as indicated in the below screenshot > Settings > Advance > Privacy and Security > Clear browsing date > CLEAR BROWSING DATA

It should fix this error.

4) Invalid SSL certificate configuration

Installation of an SSL certificate is a several steps process. Any mistake may lead to the wrong configuration of the certificate which eventually causes this error.

To avoid this error, the merchant (webmasters) should hire an expert for the installation of an SSL certificate.

The SSL certificate changes HTTP to HTTPS which meant for secure and private connections. Notify the webmaster about the same.

5) Error due to Firewall

If Clearing browser cookies, Date & Time fixes don’t fix this error, it might happen due to antivirus settings that prevent SSL-enabled websites.

Your antivirus sometimes blocks websites with SSL certificates installed and as a result, you see “Your connection is not private” error. You need to make a few changes to your Antivirus settings to resolve this issue. Here is how you can do it:

AVAST Antivirus:

If you use AVAST antivirus then you can use the following path to make necessary changes. Go to Settings > Active Protection > Web Shield > Customize un-check the checkbox: “Enable HTTPS scanning ” It will stop scanning websites with a security certificate installed and fix the error.

BitDefender Antivirus:

If you are a BitDefender antivirus user, you can turn off SSL Scan as below:

Open Bitdefender > Settings > Privacy Control > Antiphishing tab > Turn off Scan SSL.

These two are the most common antivirus however if you have any other such as Norton or McAfee, check out settings and turn off the option that has to do with SSL scanning.

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