Where do OSx and Windows store their certificates?
OS X stores certificates in a keychain. Windows stores certificates in the certificate store.
Is this one unified directory?
Not.
or was it divided in several places?
Yes.
Does Windows store them in a registry not in a directory?
Windows stores certificates in the certificate store. It is supported by the file (s), but you are not working directly with the file.
Do multiple browsers on the same operating system use the same certificate store, or do they all have their own certificate stores?
It depends.
Firefox and Opera maintain their own collection of trusted signatures (CA Certifcates).
Chrome uses storage provided by the operating system.
Safari uses certificates in the keychain.
Using IE uses certificates in the certificate store.
I'm not sure what other browsers do. For example, I donโt know where Iceweasel and Dillo get the list of trust anchors from.
Do I need to worry about nss?
It depends. What do you have in mind?
... CURLOPT_CAPATH ...
When using cURL, you often use the ca-certs file. See Automatically Converted CA Certs from mozilla.org .
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