Ward,
Here's the situation after testing it on 3 diffrent systems I have...
The site WORKS on Firefox on my Windows 11 machine and WORKS on Chrome on my iPad
The site DOES NOT load (gives error 404) on Chrome or Brave on my Windows 11 box.
The link does appear dead in some browsers, and there is a technical explanation for why. The site itself is online and functional, but it only works over plain HTTP. Chrome (since version 115) and Brave automatically upgrade all HTTP links to HTTPS behind the scenes, even when you explicitly click an
http:// link. The server infrastructure at goip.de happens to accept HTTPS connections on port 443 but does not serve the actual site content there, so it returns a 404. Because Chrome considers a 404 a valid server response, it does not fall back to the original HTTP version of the page. Firefox loads the HTTP URL as written, so it works fine. Edge, despite being Chromium-based, only upgrades URLs for domains on a curated list of known HTTPS-capable sites, and ambrosia60.goip.de is not on that list, so Edge also loads it correctly over HTTP. In other words, the difference in experiences comes down entirely to which browser you are using. Those using Firefox or Edge see the page load normally, while those using Chrome or Brave get a 404 due to the silent HTTPS auto-upgrade.
Both experiences are equally valid.
If you are using Chrome or Brave, you can verify this yourself by opening DevTools (F12), checking the Network tab, and watching the request get silently rewritten from
http:// to
https://. To work around it, you can disable "Always use secure connections" in Chrome's security settings, or the site owner could resolve it permanently by obtaining a proper SSL certificate.
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Montreal Greek Times (1:229/134)