kb/data/developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/TLS-0.md

title	chunk	source	category	tags	date_saved	instance
Transport Layer Security (TLS) - Glossary | MDN	1/3	https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/TLS	reference	web, html, css, javascript, documentation	2026-05-05T05:46:47.563480+00:00	kb-cron

• Skip to main content
• Skip to search

MDN HTML HTML: Markup language

HTML reference

• Elements
• Global attributes
• Attributes
• See all…

HTML guides

• Responsive images
• HTML cheatsheet
• Date & time formats
• See all…

Markup languages

• SVG
• MathML
• XML

CSS CSS: Styling language

CSS reference

• Properties
• Selectors
• At-rules
• Values
• See all…

CSS guides

• Box model
• Animations
• Flexbox
• Colors
• See all…

Layout cookbook

• Column layouts
• Centering an element
• Card component
• See all…

JavaScriptJS JavaScript: Scripting language

JS reference

• Standard built-in objects
• Expressions & operators
• Statements & declarations
• Functions
• See all…

JS guides

• Control flow & error handing
• Loops and iteration
• Working with objects
• Using classes
• See all…

Web APIs Web APIs: Programming interfaces

Web API reference

• File system API
• Fetch API
• Geolocation API
• HTML DOM API
• Push API
• Service worker API
• See all…

Web API guides

• Using the Web animation API
• Using the Fetch API
• Working with the History API
• Using the Web speech API
• Using web workers

All All web technology

Technologies

• Accessibility
• HTTP
• URI
• Web extensions
• WebAssembly
• WebDriver
• See all…

Topics

• Media
• Performance
• Privacy
• Security
• Progressive web apps

Learn Learn web development

Frontend developer course

• Getting started modules
• Core modules
• MDN Curriculum
• Check out the video course from Scrimba, our partner

Learn HTML

• Structuring content with HTML module

Learn CSS

• CSS styling basics module
• CSS layout module

Learn JavaScript

• Dynamic scripting with JavaScript module

Tools Discover our tools

• Playground

• HTTP Observatory

• Border-image generator

• Border-radius generator

• Box-shadow generator

• Color format converter

• Color mixer

• Shape generator

About Get to know MDN better

• About MDN

• Advertise with us

• Community

• MDN on GitHub

Blog

1. Glossary
2. Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Transport Layer Security (TLS) , formerly known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is a protocol used by applications to communicate securely across a network, preventing tampering with and eavesdropping on email, web browsing, messaging, and other protocols. Both TLS and SSL are client / server protocols that ensure communication privacy by using cryptographic protocols to provide security over a network. When a server and client communicate using TLS, it ensures that no third party can eavesdrop or tamper with any message. All modern browsers support the TLS protocol, requiring the server to provide a valid digital certificate confirming its identity in order to establish a secure connection. It is possible for both the client and server to mutually authenticate each other, if both parties provide their own individual digital certificates. Note: All major browsers began removing support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in early 2020; you'll need to make sure your web server supports TLS 1.2 or 1.3 going forward. From version 74 onwards, Firefox will return a Secure Connection Failed error when connecting to servers using the older TLS versions (Firefox bug 1606734).

In this article

• See also

See also

• Transport Layer Security (Wikipedia)
• RFC 8446 (The Transport Layer Security Protocol, Version 1.3)
• RFC 5246 (The Transport Layer Security Protocol, Version 1.2)
• Transport Layer Security
• Transport Layer Security Cheat Sheet (OWASP)
• Related glossary terms:
  • HTTPS
  • SSL