SSL Certificate
Good Chrome Warning – SSL Certificate
Google Chrome will give warning “Not Secure” for HTTP sites after January 2017. Google want a connection between Chrome and web page more secure i.e. private. A green lock in the URL indicates HTTPS connection which points “Your connection to this site is private.”
HTTPS establishes an encrypted connection between a web browser and server, ensuring that data transfers cannot be interfered with by third parties. HTTP is no longer considered sufficiently secure and is being forcibly phased out.
Google search already started preferring HTTPS web pages over HTTP pages. It has outlined sites operating without HTTPS and dropped down the SERP rankings, ultimately causing them to lose visibility. Any site not protected with Secure-Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) will be marked with the red-triangle of an insecure site.
Web hosting providers like Automatic, WordPress.com has already turned on SSL for their hosted customers in April 2016.
An SSL certificate or X.509 Digital Certificate from the trusted third party called a Certificate Authority (CA), which guarantees the Digital Certificate's authenticity with a Digital Signature is must for websites.
LinuxHost.net suggests to avoid self-signed certificates.
Types of SSL Certificates
- Domain Validation (DV) SSL Certificates: The simple websites opt for this; it implies that DV registrant has admin rights to the sites
- Organization Validation (OV) SSL Certificates: Most commercial websites opt for this certificate. It validates the domain ownership and includes ownership information like the site owner's name, city, state, and country.
- Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates: It legally validates the domain's owners. The website shows a green address bar in most browsers.
Non-profit Internet Security Research Group (ISRG)'s Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate
Hosting Providers like ZDNet and Hivelocity offers free Let's Encrypt certificates
Let's Encrypt, a project of the nonprofit Internet Security Research Group provides the free certificates to Dreamhost, Squarespace, and WordPress. Dreamhost requires you to purchase unique IP address on your hosting plan for free SSL.
- It is Open Certificate Authority providing free and automated SSL-Certificates to enable HTTPS for websites supported by Google Chrome, Mozilla, and EFF.
- Difference between Commercial CA's and Let's Encrypt SSL: The commercial businesses back up their security with a warranty of between $500,000 and $1 million, but with Let's Encrypt, it is your own. Furthermore the organization don't offer OV or EV certificates.
