I've been wondering about the value of these warnings to the 99% of end users who have no idea what HTTPS is, and who have even less understanding of why a site

I've been wondering about the value of these warnings to the 99% of end users who have no idea what HTTPS is, and who have even less understanding of why a site whose URL begins "https://" https://" would be insecure. Firefox uses icons to indicate different situations but even I don't know what they mean. I think the browsers need to indicate simply that the website is "secure" or "not secure", with some transparency for advanced users to obtain more details. Don't give end users information they don't understand about a topic they also don't know about and expect them to draw the right conclusion (in the miliseconds they spend thinking about each website); it will fail in its goal almost every time. (In a way, it's the same approach as click-wrap legaleze.) That doesn't solve another problem: Properly implemented HTTPS doesn't really mean "secure"; it just means one component likely is secure. The site could be scam, user data could be exposed many other ways, HTTPS has vulnerabilities, etc. I don't know how to effectively inform end-users about those complexities.