is there any risk of using free ssl certificate provided by various hosting providers?

[Rizwan Ramzan]

I have hosted my sites on some web hosting companies and during registration they offered me one month free ssl certificate? is it safe to use that? and after the period of month can we change our ssl certificate? or there will be any issue?

 

[RDO Servers]

There is nothing wrong with using a free SSL certificate.

Just keep in mind, if it is a 1 month free trial of a paid SSL certificate, they will probably automatically bill you the full amount next month.

 

[Rizwan Ramzan]

There is nothing wrong with using a free SSL certificate.

Just keep in mind, if it is a 1 month free trial of a paid SSL certificate, they will probably automatically bill you the full amount next month.

Yeah I knew it, that's why I want to know if I am using a trial of a paid ssl certificate and then after the trial I buy from another ssl provider, is it possible or I will have some issues?

 

[RDO Servers]

You shouldn't have any problems, but honestly I wouldn't bother installing a trial SSL for one month.

If you plan on buying a SSL from somewhere else, just go ahead and do that.

 

[Rizwan Ramzan]

You shouldn't have any problems, but honestly I wouldn't bother installing a trial SSL for one month.

If you plan on buying a SSL from somewhere else, just go ahead and do that.

I also think that the best bet would be buy an ssl certificate. Could you suggest me the best certificate provider? is there any difference between their qualities? or all of them are same?

 

[RDO Servers]

I also think that the best bet would be buy an ssl certificate. Could you suggest me the best certificate provider? is there any difference between their qualities? or all of them are same?

There are several big SSL providers. We offer GeoTrust, symantic, & Comodo, but I always recommend GeoTrust. In fact I run a GeoTrust EV SSL on my site.

The big difference, besides the cost is the level of exception, insured amount (in case of a breach), and how many domains you can cover with 1 certificate.

 

[ElixantTechnology]

Hey.

When it comes to Free SSL Certificates it is solely dependent on what your hosting provider is offering you. We utilize Comodo as our primary certificate authority specifically because of the quality of service and the fact that through various projects we have utilized them now for many years and trust them. With some hosting packages, we offer our customers a FREE Comodo EssentialSSL Certificate (normally $29.99 value) that we pay for so long as the customer sticks with us as a service provider and renews their hosting each year.. Some providers will do this, others will go the cheap route and provide 90 day trials. If your host only offers you a Trial SSL and your on one of their higher cost packages, then they are being pretty cheap and cutting corners. If they cut corners on promotional offers, consider what else they may be cutting corners on.

As for warranties, Comodo typically offers a $10K warranty on traditional certificates and $250K on their extended validation certificates. A lot of people are confused about what a SSL Certificate warranty will cover.. If the authority fail to properly validate the information contained in a digital certificate, and their failure causes the end-user to lose money in connection with a fraudulent online credit card transaction, then the end-user may have a claim to recovery under the certificate warranty.

If you are running transactions of more than $10,000 on your website, then you shouldn't be utilizing a low-cost certificate in the first place and should consider extended validation. Processing that kind of money should reflect that you are operating a legitimate and registered business and as such you should have no difficulties getting approved for one.

 

[Hostlumina]

Hey.

When it comes to Free SSL Certificates it is solely dependent on what your hosting provider is offering you. We utilize Comodo as our primary certificate authority specifically because of the quality of service and the fact that through various projects we have utilized them now for many years and trust them. With some hosting packages, we offer our customers a FREE Comodo EssentialSSL Certificate (normally $29.99 value) that we pay for so long as the customer sticks with us as a service provider and renews their hosting each year.. Some providers will do this, others will go the cheap route and provide 90 day trials. If your host only offers you a Trial SSL and your on one of their higher cost packages, then they are being pretty cheap and cutting corners. If they cut corners on promotional offers, consider what else they may be cutting corners on.

.....

This is just non-sense. If a host offers a 30 day or 90 day free trial with their packages that is an option and it is not them been cheap nor cutting corners. It's simply an offering of a trial of a product within their service and wouldn't low ball with such statements while "throwing" in what "you offer" just prior to that - with all do respect.

Back to the OP

As mentioned before there absolutely nothing wrong with using that trial certificate in fact you can probably go directly to any SSL provider and get a trial straight from them if you are looking for a specific one or try others. Once that trial is over you can go through any provider for that SSL.

The SSL certificate is not tied to your provider whatsoever, however there is something to keep in mind.
- Check with your provide if they support SNI this will save you a bit of cost as you will not need a dedicated IP to install the certificate.
- If they don't offer SNI, check the cost of the dedicated IP.

There are multiple SSLs and their pricing will very depending on the features. GeoCerts has a wizard that will walk you through choosing a certificate if you don't want to spend time going through and comparing, (https://www.geocerts.com/wizard)

Here is a good article for beginners on the bare basics.

https://info.ssl.com/ssl-made-easy-for-beginners/

 

[Rizwan Ramzan]

This is just non-sense. If a host offers a 30 day or 90 day free trial with their packages that is an option and it is not them been cheap nor cutting corners. It's simply an offering of a trial of a product within their service and wouldn't low ball with such statements while "throwing" in what "you offer" just prior to that - with all do respect.

Back to the OP

As mentioned before there absolutely nothing wrong with using that trial certificate in fact you can probably go directly to any SSL provider and get a trial straight from them if you are looking for a specific one or try others. Once that trial is over you can go through any provider for that SSL.

The SSL certificate is not tied to your provider whatsoever, however there is something to keep in mind.
- Check with your provide if they support SNI this will save you a bit of cost as you will not need a dedicated IP to install the certificate.
- If they don't offer SNI, check the cost of the dedicated IP.

There are multiple SSLs and their pricing will very depending on the features. GeoCerts has a wizard that will walk you through choosing a certificate if you don't want to spend time going through and comparing, (https://www.geocerts.com/wizard)

Here is a good article for beginners on the bare basics.

https://info.ssl.com/ssl-made-easy-for-beginners/

Hey.

When it comes to Free SSL Certificates it is solely dependent on what your hosting provider is offering you. We utilize Comodo as our primary certificate authority specifically because of the quality of service and the fact that through various projects we have utilized them now for many years and trust them. With some hosting packages, we offer our customers a FREE Comodo EssentialSSL Certificate (normally $29.99 value) that we pay for so long as the customer sticks with us as a service provider and renews their hosting each year.. Some providers will do this, others will go the cheap route and provide 90 day trials. If your host only offers you a Trial SSL and your on one of their higher cost packages, then they are being pretty cheap and cutting corners. If they cut corners on promotional offers, consider what else they may be cutting corners on.

As for warranties, Comodo typically offers a $10K warranty on traditional certificates and $250K on their extended validation certificates. A lot of people are confused about what a SSL Certificate warranty will cover.. If the authority fail to properly validate the information contained in a digital certificate, and their failure causes the end-user to lose money in connection with a fraudulent online credit card transaction, then the end-user may have a claim to recovery under the certificate warranty.

If you are running transactions of more than $10,000 on your website, then you shouldn't be utilizing a low-cost certificate in the first place and should consider extended validation. Processing that kind of money should reflect that you are operating a legitimate and registered business and as such you should have no difficulties getting approved for one.

There are several big SSL providers. We offer GeoTrust, symantic, & Comodo, but I always recommend GeoTrust. In fact I run a GeoTrust EV SSL on my site.

The big difference, besides the cost is the level of exception, insured amount (in case of a breach), and how many domains you can cover with 1 certificate.

All of you have done a big favor for me by writing such a detailed post for me. I have now completely understood everything about ssl certificates and will surely choose a best provider for my website.