Ask HN: A good and cheap secure certificate provider? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: A good and cheap secure certificate provider?

6 pointscsbartus6 comments

On a quick google search I see prices from ~ $13-$50/year provided by GoDaddy, register.com, Verisign etc.

I'm hosting my site currently at Dreamhost but I might migrate to other places.

What to look for when purchasing a certificate? Encryption strength, portability, price?

Any good recommendations?

Thank you.

Now I see on Dreamhost to access your db via phpMyAdmin you are offered a subdomain like mysql.yourdomain.com This requires a wildcard certificate which is more expensive than for a single domain.

I should reformulate my question like "Where I can find a good secure hosting for my Wordpress shop?". But I also have a Heroku Rails app which will need SSL soon.

Now I have two problems: - find a new host for PHP/WP which offers phpMyAdmin without needing a wildcard certificate - find a good certificate provider also for my Rails app on Heroku

You don't need a wildcard certificate, unless you want to host a lot of subdomains. If you need one just for mysql.yourdomain.com, you can still get a regular certificate, it just won't apply to www.yourdomain.com. Also, you can always get two.

The main difference between GoDaddy's certificates (and similar) and more expensive ones like Thawte and VeriSign is that the former ones are chained. This means browsers don't trust GoDaddy directly. They have to verify their certificate with whatever provider they are using. This is generally not a problem, but does require one extra step from you when setting up the certificate. GoDaddy has instructions.

I see now, I can use a regular/free certificate for mysql. and a trusted-but-cheap from GoDaddy for www.

Thanks a lot!!

Now I see there are certificates even over $500/year for a single domain ...

And I see Dreamhost was offering certificates in the past but now it has canceled ...

This business is looking very shady I think for a very good reason I would like to know

You should be able to find a discounted GeoTrust Quick SSL 1-year cert for ~$70. I think that's the best option. GoDaddy isn't recognized by at least some semi-recent browser versions IIRC.

Buy it from GoDaddy and be done with it. Purchase as many years as you can afford because renewing certificates is a bitch.

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