Problem accessing some sites and HTTPS Everywhere.

We have noticed a small problem recently when trying to access a specific site ‘www.joomla.org’.  Not a particularly unusual place to access given some of our work. What was confusing was that other sites in the same domain were all accessible.

After much head scratching and trial and error, clearing cache’s and disabling cookies etc.  we eventually discovered the cause.

We use an extension names HTTPS Everywhere in our Chrome and Firefox browsers and it was this that was forcing the use of the HTTPS protocol on the site.  The result was that the site was always timing out.  Once identified the resolution was (as usual) simple, and involved disabling the use of HTTPS for that specific address.  Once this was done the problem was solved.

This type of problem may of course impact other web addresses, but after six months of use we must admit it is the only site that has every given us any problem. One for others to note in case they have the same type of problem.