Tell me more ×
IT Security Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for IT security professionals. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 4 down vote favorite
1

I want to know whether my browser is using SSL or TLS connection if I see HTTPS.

I want to know for IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. I want to know the protocol version.

share|improve this question
4  
That depends on the browser. – CodesInChaos Aug 22 '12 at 21:22
btw TLS is essentially SSL 3.1, so you want to know the protocol version. – CodesInChaos Aug 22 '12 at 21:23
please, specify what browser you are using – eversor Aug 22 '12 at 21:33
I want to know on all the famous browsers; IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari. Yes, I want to know the protocol version. – zhtway Aug 22 '12 at 21:35
1  
if its google chrome support.google.com/chrome/bin/… – vignesh4303 Aug 23 '12 at 4:46
show 1 more comment

2 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

There are several protocol versions : SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2. Internally, TLS 1.0/1.1/1.2 are SSL 3.1/3.2/3.3 respectively (the protocol name was changed when SSL became a standard). I assume that you want to know the exact protocol version that your browser is using.

According to what is described on this blog post, Internet Explorer 8 can display the protocol version information (expand the Page menu then click on Properties). Possibly, this might still work on IE 9 (no Windows machine to try that out right now).

Apparently, Firefox does not give access to the version information. Also, as time of writing, it is reported that Firefox does SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 only, not 1.1 or 1.2.

Chrome can display the version. Click on the padlock icon (on the left of the URL); a popup appears, which contains some details, including the protocol version (e.g. "the connection uses TLS 1.0")(verified on version 21.0.1180.82).

Opera shows the protocol version in a way similar to Chrome: click on the padlock icon, then click on the "Details" button (e.g. "TLS v1.0 256 bit AES (1024 bit DHE_RSA/SHA)")(verified on version 12.01).

For browsers which do not show the information, you can always obtain it running a network analyzer like Wireshark or Network Monitor: they will happily parse the public headers of the SSL/TLS packets, and show you the version (indeed, all of the data transfers in SSL/TLS are done in individual "records" and the 5-byte header of each record begins with the protocol version over two bytes).

And, of course, the actual protocol version is a choice of the server, based on what the server is configured to accept and the maximum version announced by the client. If the server is configured to do TLS 1.0 only then any connection which actually happens will use TLS 1.0, necessarily.

(Edit: I have incorporated some information from the comments; done a few tests myself. Feel free to enhance this answer as needed.)

share|improve this answer
Interesting that the Firefox extension shows the cipher, but not the SSL version. – Polynomial Aug 23 '12 at 7:40
In firefox clicking on the favicon in the address bar and clicking more info shows the same info as the extension. In chrome clicking the icon also shows that info in a popup. – ewanm89 Aug 23 '12 at 12:13
@ewanm89: for the Firefox I am presently using (14.0.1 on a Linux/Ubuntu system), all the information is not present. I can get the server certificate and the used symmetric cipher, but not the exact protocol version (i.e. I don't know if it is SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2). – Thomas Pornin Aug 23 '12 at 12:26
@ThomasPornin as Polynomial has already pointed out, neither does the extension. I'd add that current versions of firefox are SSL 3.0/TLS 1.0 only – ewanm89 Aug 23 '12 at 12:39
@Thomas Pornin : Thanks for your post. – zhtway Aug 23 '12 at 18:20
show 3 more comments
up vote 0 down vote

I am still unable to find add-ons or extensions to check ssl protocol version directly from browser session. But what I found is here.

openssl s_client -connect <<domain name>>:443 -ssl2
openssl s_client -connect <<domain name>>:443 -ssl3

openssl command give ssl information. I don't know much detail on openssl command.

This site use openssl to get extensive information. http://www.serversniff.net/sslcheck.php

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.