Creating SSL certificates.

[TechMonkey]

Sorry for the bump but could I have some feedback on how using the free SSL certs have gone. We are getting tired of certificate errors for our external services (space access and webmail). We have looked at the StartCom and ipSCA offerings but are slightly wary of being authenticated by random companies.

 

So any opinions?

[Michael]

I've used Comodo in the past and they provide instructions how to import the certificate using all kinds of software. In my case I used IIS6.

 

I'd recommend option 3 as this will do everything you want from it. For £100 it'll last 3 years.

 

The more expensive certificates allow them to function with IE7 and FF 2.x. A good example of this is PayPal, where the address bar goes green. Very expensive for what it is, but the warranty value is incredibly high.

 

Eventually it'll become the standard until someone develops another "security idea" and sells it for a premium.

[PiqueABoo]

So any opinions?

 

Unsuprisingly yes.. buying certificates when someone's willing to give them to you, or at least Education, for free is silly. Pragmatically no one is going to care where it came from provided their browser trusts the CA. The new (rip-off?) EV stuff is irrelevant unless you're a business taking credit card details off visitors etc.

 

If all you want is to stop scary pop-ups in IE & Firefox for staff then an ipsCA freebie should be fine.

 

[And if you're bothered about the security angle you probably ought to be giving your users client certificates in order to access your site, but that's another argument and a lot of work]

[mrcrazy04]

Regarding startcom SSL certificates - the CA is trusted in all browsers apart from IE at the moment.

I've used them before, and it's simply a case of filling out the form, then pasting in the output from the IIS certification wizard, and receiving email at an administrative email address for your domain with an authentication link to get the certificate.