Browsers don't append "https" to secure pages

[Flickerdart]

I've been struggling with a weird bug on my Windows 8.1 machine for a few days now:
When I go to a secure web page, every browser fails to recognize the page is secure, and gives me a "Connection was reset" error. However, if I type in "https://" manually before the site, it works fine. For instance, I can type in "gmail.com" and get the error, but "https://gmail.com" works fine.
This also has the side effects of making it impossible to load YouTube videos (I get "an error has occurred" on everything) and gravatars.

I don't know how to go about fixing this problem - the built-in Windows networking troubleshooter doesn't notice that anything is wrong.

Anyone have any idea about what might be wrong with it?

[Worira]

I'm not sure what's actually causing this, but using HTTPS Everywhere (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) should probably fix the immediate problem for you.

[lesser_minion]

Anyone have any idea about what might be wrong with it?

I wasn't aware that there was ever any magic going on with browsers 'recognising' secure sites -- the browser just goes to http://www.example.com/some-secure-resource and gets a response saying "ur doing it wrong, go to https://www.example.com/some-secure-resource".

So, unless I'm hopelessly wrong, your problem is that your browser isn't following redirects. I'd imagine that it's either your network, your antimalware, or some standard extension or piece of configuration you use that's at fault.

[Flickerdart]

I wasn't aware that there was ever any magic going on with browsers 'recognising' secure sites -- the browser just goes to http://www.example.com/some-secure-resource and gets a response saying "ur doing it wrong, go to https://www.example.com/some-secure-resource".

So, unless I'm hopelessly wrong, your problem is that your browser isn't following redirects. I'd imagine that it's either your network, your antimalware, or some standard extension or piece of configuration you use that's at fault.
Possible, but I haven't made any changes to my settings recently, so I don't know why it would work before but not now.



I'm not sure what's actually causing this, but using HTTPS Everywhere (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) should probably fix the immediate problem for you.
This seems to have solved the issue - YouTube videos work as well. Thanks!