Monthly Archives: May 2018

One of the most popular articles on our blog is an article dispelling common myths around SSL certificates. Let’s Encrypt gained a lot of attention after the article was written. Let’s Encrypt is a radically new way of getting an SSL certificate that is primarily popular because it’s free. The motivation is supposedly that, in 2015, there is really no reason not to use HTTPS. The overhead was considerable in the 90s but today, in most circumstances there is no perceivable difference. With recent revelations about ISP and government spying, other concerns about privacy and a spate of large hacks, there is a potentially lot to be gained. Google is also prioritising websites using HTTPS in its rankings and, more recently, in Chrome.

The cost to issue SSL certificates is generally very low so it is possible to offer them for nothing and rely on advertising or sponsorship. Let’s Encrypt is sponsored by several recognised names including Mozilla, Cisco and Facebook. It has also recently left beta, meaning that they believe that it’s stable enough for normal use, which has also been our experience.

Let’s Encrypt vs. the competition

Most SSL issuers have a set way of issuing certificates. For certificates other than EV (extended validation, “green bar”), you receive an email at a recognised email address on the domain that you want to secure. This proves that you control the domain and allows them to fulfil their obligations. Comodo has also added some other options such as creating a DNS record or uploading a file to your webspace. In all cases, when you’ve done this, you get the certificate, for at least one year.

The certificates aren’t usually recalled except under extreme circumstances (e.g. if you bought from a reseller who didn’t pay their bill) although they can, hypothetically, be recalled in most cases using OCSP, a modern standard, also aggressively supported by Google, that allows the issuer to revoke it in a way that is obvious to most users.

To use Let’s Encrypt, you or your hosting company or server administrator must install some software on the server that automates the Comodo-style HTML file upload process. Every so often, it speaks to Let’s Encrypt to get a new HTML file and places it in your web root. Let’s Encrypt sees it and issues a new certificate that is good for another (in our experience) 90 days. The impressive feat here is that once the software is installed, it’s all automatic. The down side is that the software must be installed and maintained, although it is fairly easy.

Thos who use cPanel can easily install a plugin (that works well in our experience) to easily add and remove certificates to/from websites without dealing with an issuer or reseller. A web hosting provider with hundreds of accounts can save their users a lot of expense and time with this plugin.

Why you might not use Let’s Encrypt

There are relatively few reasons why one should not use it. The security is the same, it costs nothing and the issuance process is usually easier. If your hosting company doesn’t allow you to install the software or doesn’t support it themselves, for now, you’ll have to buy certificates the old way. Equally, if you have a lot of subdomains to secure or want a “green bar”, you might still opt for a wildcard or EV certificate since Let’s Encrypt don’t issue them. I’ve yet to see any impartial numbers on how EV certificates and site seals impact sales – I would guess the impact is very minimal in percentage terms. However, for a busy e-commerce website, it is probably worth the £30-100 to buy an EV certificate even if the percentage effect on conversions is very small.

Overall, the author is glad that the days of expensive SSL certificates are coming to a close. It was an industry that we could do without and Let’s Encrypt have had a substantial impact on way SSL certificates will be issued from now on.