Now it's happening on YouTube also.
Yes, when I had the problem with Google, I had the same problem with YouTube. They use the same certificate, so if it's bad on Google it will also be bad on YouTube. Probably any website owned by Google will have the same problem.
If Firefox caused the problem, won't they ever fix it themselves?
Not likely. And unfortunately when it happens, it doesn't seem to fix itself after a time. I think the certificate gets corrupted somehow during installation.
If you use a different search engine, like
https://duckduckgo.com/https://www.startpage.com/https://www.ixquick.eu/you can try searching for a fix. I can only wish you luck. I didn't have any. One site claimed resetting Firefox would work, but it didn't for me.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settingsI never found a fix that worked other than the one I used -- importing the relevant certificate from a Mozilla-based web browser (like Seamonkey or Pale Moon) where Google was working properly.
I expect most people just switch web browsers when this happens. If you try Pale Moon you may find it's so close to Firefox that you can just stick with it.
If you have access to another computer where Firefox is working, you can get the functional Google certificate from there. To get the certificate from a computer where Firefox can access Google...
On computer where Firefox works with Google...1. Go to
www.google.com using Firefox on the computer where it works.
2. Click the little green lock to the left of where it says
www.google.com in the address bar.
3. On the dropdown, click the arrow to the right of where it says
www.google.com then click down where it says "More Information"
4. On the right side of the box that pops up, click the View Certificate button
5. In this next box, Click the Details tab
6. It should say Google Internet Authority G2 (or possibly G3) in the Certificate Hierarchy section. Down at the bottom is a button that says Export. Click that and save the certificate to somewhere where you can find it. On my computer it wants to save as wwwgooglecom.crt
On computer where Firefox doesn't work with Google...To import a certificate into Firefox, you may first have to delete the bad one. Make sure all cache and cookies are cleared after doing this. You may want to reboot the computer, but at the very least close Firefox.
You'll probably need a USB drive to transfer the functional certificate between computers. I assume you know how to transfer a file from one computer to another using a USB drive.
1. Open Firefox to import the functional certificate from Firefox on the other computer.
2. Type
about:preferences
in the URL bar and Enter
Advanced tab
Certificates tab
Authorities tab
Click View Certificates button
Click Import button at bottom.
Browse to where you copied the certificate from the other Firefox and import it.
If it won't import, then you have to get rid of the bad certificate first. The Google certificate is listed under Geotrust and is called
Google Internet Authority G2
(or possibly G3)
To get rid of a bad one, highlight it and click the Delete or Distrust button.
Before importing a good certificate, you need to delete cache and cookies and close Firefox. If you don't do this, it will remember the bad settings in the old certificate.
Once you manage to import the good one, close and reopen Firefox and make sure you're able to access Google and YouTube.
This took me about an hour to figure out -- after I'd given up trying to get an easy fix from web searches. Part of it was because I didn't realize I had to close Firefox and delete cache and cookies after removing the bad certificate.
If it sounds too complicated, I can see why.
Which is why I'd recommend switching to a Firefox-like browser like Pale Moon. Pale Moon can even use Firefox add-ons. Also regular Firefox may have a separate certificate store than the ESR version of Firefox, so it's possible that the ESR version wouldn't have the problem even though the regular Firefox did. If this worked, it would be a whole lot easier to install a different version of Firefox (or a different browser) than mess with importing a certificate.