diff --git a/corsa/proxy.py b/corsa/proxy.py
index b94767f..5204999 100644
--- a/corsa/proxy.py
+++ b/corsa/proxy.py
@@ -111,6 +111,7 @@ def request_handler(self, url):
             headers=self.request.headers,
             follow_redirects=False,
             allow_nonstandard_methods=True,
+            validate_cert=False, #for ssl dev servers that are using free dev certs
             use_gzip=False, # otherwise tornado will decode proxied data
         )