what happens if I delete certificates?

[s1wood]

Following the recent threads on 'heartbleed' I took a look at my certificates on Firefox and realise I haven't a clue what most of them are. Should I delete ones I don't recognise and if I do will that gum up my access if they were for sites I need?
I am not entirely sure what they are for.

Susan

[bashiergui]

No. If you delete random certs you'll break a bunch of websites. I haven't seen any good advice for users frankly. A website owner could reissue certs but have failed to actually patch the vulns on their systems. Not all vendors have even determined whether they're vulnerable yet, so no one can patch unknown stuff.

[s1wood]

Right, I'll leave them alone then. I wish I could find out what they are though.

Susan

[bashiergui]

This is a pretty thorough explanation of the certs Firefox uses and how you can research them
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/secu...erts_help.html

[s1wood]

I've read through it but I'm not much the wiser. How did all these certificates get into my certificate manager? - I don't remember ever being asked about any of them. I suppose the real question is : should I be worried? They've presumably been there some time since I've never looked before and I'm not aware of any problems.

Susan