Browsers have been doing a lot lately to tighten up on SSL/HTTPS certificates. It might have been something like that and the update resolved it. Secured communications are very sensitive and any number of things can cause issues (system time being off a little, not being able to check the cert revocation list to validate a good cert, etc).
Glad it resolved for you. It is odd that both you and 6 were experiencing issues at around the same time though. Maybe smokester or TNG were doing some system maintenance at the time (though smokester would normally give a heads up).