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How to enable TLS protocols in browsers

Submitted by Asif Nowaj, Last Modified on 2019-11-08

Why you are here, I am guessing...

If you are here, looking for how to enable latest TLS protocols in your browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer or Edge, then probably you are already aware of TLS and TLS 1.2 needs be used very soon.
If you have one more minute, you can check out What Is TLS? . Here, you can see which version of TLS is deprecating when and what TLS version you ultimately need to focus on.
Also, if you are not sure what TLS is using by your browser then you can check the same by going through How to check my browser support latest TLS or not

Brief background why everyone is after TLS

As per Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS), for securing payment data, all data processor needs to stop using old SSL protocols and early version of TLS. The deadline was 30th June 2018.
So SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 has be to discontinued after the deadline and recommended to use TLS 1.1 or higher (TLS 1.2 is highly recommended) for implementing a more secure encryption protocol.

So most of the website owners are now disabling SSL and TLS 1.0 protocols to be used to connect with their websites. But if you are still using a browser which is compatible with TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2 then you might see that some website is not working in your browser, nonetheless, the connection between your browser and other websites is not secure and you can be hacked.

What action do you need to take

Okay, It's simple. You need to use either TLS 1.1 or 1.2 for your browsers and disable SSL 2.0 , SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 in browser. Though TLS 1.2 is highly recommended but not all websites are still compatible with higher TLS protocols. So, if you disable TLS 1.0, you might see, still many website is not opening. So target is to disable SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, and TLS 1.0 and enable TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 in your browsers.

One good news is, if your browser is up-to-date irrespective of which browser you are using, might not have to do anything. As in all latest browsers, latest TLS protocols are enabled by default and are using higher TLS protocols wherever possible. Please check whether you are using latest web browsers or not. If yes, then you can skip below actions.

If you are reading this article then high chance is your browser is already supports TLS.

If you are using older browsers for any reason and you want to enable higher TLS protocols please go through below steps as per your browser. But my recommendation would be to upgrade your Operating System and Browsers as soon as possible.

Enable TLS protocols on older browsers

Please note that if you have multiple browsers in same machine, you can follow below steps for one. Because all other browsers use the same machine settings.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

  1. Open Internet Explorer
  2. From the menu bar, click Tools > Internet Options > Advanced tab Or press alt+x+o
  3. Scroll down to Security category, manually check the option box for Use TLS 1.1 and Use TLS 1.2
  4. Click OK
  5. Close your browser and start again

Google Chrome

Google Chrome automatically uses highest TLS protocols.

If you are using Google Chrome version 22 or greater, TLS 1.1 is automatically supported. TLS 1.1 & 1.2 are automatically enabled from version 29 onwards. If you still wants to see the selection and settings you can follow below steps.

  1. Open Google Chrome
  2. Click Alt+F and select Settings
  3. Write "proxy" in the search box at the top and select "Open Proxy Settings"
  4. Select the Advanced tab
  5. Scroll down to Security category, manually check the option box for Use TLS 1.1 and Use TLS 1.2
  6. Click OK
  7. Close your browser and start again

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Open Firefox
  2. In the address bar, type about:config and press Enter
  3. In the Search field, enter tls. Find and double-click the entry for security.tls.version.max
  4. Set the integer value to 4 to force protocol of TLS 1.3
  5. Click OK
  6. Close your browser and start Mozilla Firefox again

Apple Safari

There are no options for enabling SSL protocols for this browsers manually. If you are using Safari version 7 or greater, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 are automatically enabled.

Discussion or Comment

If you have anything in mind to share, please bring it in the discussion forum here.

https://forum.everyething.com/tls-f37/