Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Client certificates
Raised as a usability problem by 36 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2011–2025), in 28 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Client certificate setup is so painful nobody uses themUnreviewed
20112026- Client certificate UI has been terrible for years, so people avoid using it2025-09-08
- The user experience for client certificates is horrible and an afterthought2023-07-23
- UX of client certificate setup is hard to get right2023-07-22
Managing client certificates has no easy way to distribute to devicesUnreviewed
20112026- Managing client certificates has a terrible UI and no easy way to distribute them to multiple devices2021-01-04
- Users must manually export private keys and certificates onto every device, a tedious multi-step process2018-01-16
- Sharing or managing client certs across multiple computers is too cumbersome for end users2016-11-23
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 41 complaints
- Client certificate UI has been terrible for years, so people avoid using it2025-09-08
- Users must run OpenSSL commands in a terminal to set up client certificates2025-05-06
- The user experience for client certificates is horrible and an afterthought2023-07-23
- UX of client certificate setup is hard to get right2023-07-22
- Certificate and passkey UI is neglected, so users struggle to manage keypairs2023-07-22
- Client certificate user experience has historically been as bad as SSH keys2023-07-22
- The user interface for handling client certificates is abysmal and hard to use2023-05-01
- Configuring client certificates in Chrome, Firefox and Windows is a messy, hard process2023-05-01
- Client certificates are hard to configure, and users get locked out when their environment changes2022-03-12
- Installing certificates per browser and device is painful, and auth popups slow people down2022-03-12
- Client side TLS has a terrible user interface for users2022-01-16
- Users get a popup every time and must back up or reinstall certificates on new computers2022-01-02
- Client certificates are so hard to use that people avoid them2021-12-07
- Managing client certificates has a terrible UI and no easy way to distribute them to multiple devices2021-01-04
- Client certificate UIs are terrible and hard to explain to less technical users2021-01-04
- Users find key creation and signup confusing and cannot sign in on other machines2020-11-15
- Normal users found certificate installation confusing and often couldn't install them at all2020-02-21
- Opaque TLS errors like 'SSL Error #128' give users no usable information about what went wrong2018-08-30
- Client certificate UX is broken and hard for users to work with2018-04-10
- Users struggle to install certs, needing step-by-step instructions that differ per browser2018-04-10
- Getting, installing, backing up and selecting client certificates is tedious and confusing2018-01-16
- Users must manually export private keys and certificates onto every device, a tedious multi-step process2018-01-16
- Client certificates are hard for average users to install and use, so few sites adopt them2017-07-13
- Installing client certificates across Firefox, Safari and devices is a painful, tedious process2017-04-29
- Sharing or managing client certs across multiple computers is too cumbersome for end users2016-11-23
- Maintaining and deploying certs to all devices is too complex for non-technical users2016-11-23
- Must install and renew the certificate on every device and browser, losing time yearly2016-11-23
- Client cert login is hard to use and cannot be logged out of2016-11-23
- Users can't follow steps to generate and install client certs; the tools and terms are confusing2016-11-23
- Certificate is a file users must remember, move between devices, and may lose2016-11-23
- Certificate-based login has terrible UI and UX, so people avoid it2016-10-31
- Client certificates are harder to use than passwords, with a UI that sucks2016-02-01
- Users without password managers would struggle to set up certificates on new devices2015-12-27
- Certificate UI is bad, dialogs pop up uncontrollably and there is no way to log out2015-10-12
- Client certificate setup is so painful that nobody uses them2015-10-06
- User experience of client certificates for signing in is horrible2015-01-30
- Installing client certificates is too complicated for average users2014-02-13
- Average users need tech support to handle browser-side certificates2014-02-01
- Installing client certificates on Windows or Mac is incomprehensible even to technical people2013-11-15
- Client certificates are hard to install and use, so almost nobody adopts them2013-03-18
- Browser GUI for client certificates is extremely bad and hard to use2011-07-01