Error message "Revocation information for the security certificate for this site is not available. Do you want to proceed? [Yes] [No] [View certificate]

This is a terrible suggestion, akin to stopping your smoke detector from going off by removing the battery. 

A Certificate is a document which establishes trust between the browser and the website you (or in the case of Java, an application) are visiting. Certificates work via a certification path.  You do not "trust" the issuer, but you trust someone who does.  A "CRL" is a "Certificate Revocation List", which is a list that is checked to determine if a given certificate is still "trusted".  If a certificate appears on a CRL, it means it has been revoked, i.e., the issuer no longer trusts it.  There are many reasons this can happen, for example, compromise of the password that is used to access the certificate, exposure of a certificate's private key, etc.  

When you recieve a certificate error, it means that although the certificate appears to be valid (the url matches that specified in the certificate, and the certificate expiry date is valid i.e., the certificate is not expired) BUT there was no valid CRL available to check the revocation status. 

This means that the certificate may be valid, or it may be revoked, but in either case your browser can't tell. 

In practical terms, consider the certificate for your banking insitution becomes compromised. The bank issues a certificate revocation, and places the cert on the CRL.  A bad guy creates a copy of your banking site, and uses the compromised cert to establish trust.  When the site is visited, the browser cannot find the CRL, so doesn't know the certificate is revoked.  It trusts the fake site, and you are not provided with any prompts or warnings. 

I don't know why Java is throwing CRL revocation errors...it's usually a problem with the browser reaching the CRL Distribution Point (for whatever reason). But turning off CRL checking is a bad idea.

For some time I have been receiving the dialog box containing "Security Alert 'Revocation information for the security certificate for this site is not available. Do you want to proceed? [Yes] [No] [View certificate]' ." I know that many, if not all, of the sites are OK as I have used them multiple times in the past.

I have tried various "fixes" found by Googling "revocation information" and nothing fixes the problem--what ever it is.

When I try to do various updates, not related to this problem, I am not allow to download the updates because of a security problem.

Any suggestions for a computer challenged user? Thanks.

Richard

I was having the same problem and found a very simple solution in another forum.  I had inadvertently changed the date on my computer.  Just correcting this solved my problem!

not a good idea, as is noted in the earlier reply of this thread, you are foregoing your security measures.

Checking for Publisher's certifcate revocation can prevent fraudulent certificates.  I don't personally think this is a solution.  

What I have found so far with the Java certifciate is that if I log on as an administrator, the certficate notice does not pop-up.  It is only whne logging on as a Standard User that it appears.  I am continuing to check into this as it only happened recently with a Java update.  They claim it is not their problem.