Anne: My big brother database doesn't have your email in it, so, I'm sending here. Below are the emacs variable and script needed in order to get SSL working in w3. Here's the bit from my "~/.emacs" for w3. YOur milage may vary... ;;; emacs w3 stuff here... (setq load-path (cons "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp" load-path)) (condition-case () (require 'w3-auto "w3-auto") (error nil)) (setq url-cookie-file "/home/dave/w3.cookies") (setq url-privacy-level 'none) (setq url-mail-command 'vm-mail) (setq ssl-program-name "start_ssl" ssl-program-arguments '("s_client" "-quiet" "-host" host "-port" service "-verify" (int-to-string ssl-certificate-verification-policy) "-CApath" ssl-certificate-directory)) (setq max-specpdl-size 10000) The script "~/start_ssl" is below. #!/bin/bash # this script called by emacs-w3 to start ssl client #redirect stderr so emacs doesn't barf on opensll exec 2>/dev/null exec openssl "$@" Hope this helps, -Dave