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I don't know if I can explain this in a way ordinary users can understand, but I'll try.
- This problem only arises when the user's browser tries to access a website using a 'secured' connection - the website's address starts with https://.
- This part of the 'error' message is misleading and, in fact, meaningless:
*Your TLS security settings aren’t set to the defaults, …***There is no such animal as 'default TLS security settings.'**The choice of security protocols is entirely up to the individual user. I'm not sure what they are set to on a virgin installation of Windows, but whatever settings they are, there is nothing to suggest that they are 'defaults.'
Windows allows for a variety of settings, but what is best is for the user to decide. In recent versions of Windows 10, we have the ability to select some or all of SSL 3.0*,*TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 in increasing order of security. Earlier versions of Windows also allow for SSL 1.0 and SSL 2.0, which have been shown to be insecure since those versions were released.
Over the last couple of years, clever hackers have been able to intercept calls to apparently 'secured' web pages if the protocol in use is lower than TLS 1.1. This means that the user is vulnerable if the connection uses a less secure protocol.
The browser in use will first try to make a connection to a website using the most secure protocol, TLS 1.2. If the site supports it, then this is what will be used. If it doesn't, then the next attempt will use TLS 1.1 and so on down the line. If the user elects not to use the 'highest' protocol supported by the site, the connection will fail, the browser will not load the page the user is trying to access and an error message may be displayed. 3. If a particular site is configured to use only TLS 1.0 or lower, the user would be well advised not to connect to it. Should a user elect to access such a webpage regardless, it can only be at that user's own risk.
For this reason, only TLS 1.1 and 1.2 should be selected. This is done by opening the Internet Options dialogue in Control Panel and checking the appropriate boxes under Security on the Advanced tab of that dialogue. In Windows 10, the Control Panel can be opened by pressing Windows key + R, typing control and pressing Enter. 4. There are other considerations as well involving the strength of encryption provided by the website, but these shouldn't normally bother the ordinary user. I've rarely come across cases where this has been the cause of a particular connection fault. If this does happen, it's the fault of the system administrators of the site concerned, who have failed to keep up with the successive demands of Windows to uphold the security of its users. 5. The higher the security level, the more complex the interaction between the browser and the website. This means that it's more susceptible to errors; if only a single byte is not transmitted correctly, the connection will fail - that's the nature of secure connections. I'm fairly sure that most of the faults of this kind are the result of minor errors in the transmission of data from browser to website and vice versa. This indicates that the way forward is to close down the browser, to delete the temporary Internet files (often referred to as the cache) and then to try again.
Security when browsing is a boring topic, but it's also vital if you're not to put your computer at risk. I'm sorry if this explanation is too complicated for affected users; I can only suggest that you read it again, slowly, and follow its recommendations whether you've understood them or not.