Someone should probably point out: most of your problems were related to doing full business validation from a crappy provider. Business validation is optional and doesn't enhance the transport-layer security benefits of using SSL.
I went through the dance with Startcom and agree with the article that the web interface has horrible workflow. However they were clearly doing their best to verify that it actually was a business they were creating an account for. For example, they ignored the phone number I gave them, and instead called on the publicly-listed phone number they found on the internet.
It really does not add anything to the equation. Just extra costs and work for you.
It's been studied and pointed out that a green-bar does nothing to conversions and sales.
I suggest skipping it always, but often times a higher business type will override the suggestion of whomever has to implement it and maintain it - simply because they really don't get it or don't care about the cost (which isn't really that much, but still, you have to jump through hoops getting the docs in order).
I'm not debating this point, but if you have some citations for this assertion, I'd love to read them. I've always heard and read otherwise.
I just completed a multiple-month-long process of converting a dynamic-domain application to support SSL-friendly URIs and implementing SSL on it's web servers based entirely on the concept of adding a green bar for boosting conversions (data isn't quite in yet to verify we did anything). I would really hope that I didn't waste multiple iterations on a pipe dream.
Those "Get better conversion rates with EV Certs" internal studies are pure marketing B.S. by the SSL vendors. Do not trust what they say.
Every single person that has tested this on his site has come to the same exact conclusion - the green-bar has no meaning to the consumer, nor do they even notice it.
http://www.theroiteam.com/blog/is-an-ev-ssl-worth-it-or-even...
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/7697/ev-ssl-ce...
http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=54707
http://www.quora.com/VeriSign/Does-ecommerce-conversion-incr...
The EV certs contain extra information so are likely to be a little larger, but we are talking at most a couple of hundred bytes here so the extra download time getting the cert and CPU time verifying things are not going to be significant.
People do tend to have larger key sizes on EV certs (2048 or 4096 bit rather than 1024 or 2048 (though 1024 bit keys are increasingly rare even for "standard" certificates)) which might impose a measurable latency difference on a mobile (or other low-power) device due to the math involved in verifying the site against the certificate, but nothing like the order of magnitude that link mentions.
Got any source? Would really like to show that to some folks here ...
I guess I was more trying to convey that it's reassuring to know that Startcom (at least) go to some effort to investigate their verification, and it's not just a bits-in-bits-out process.
This being said, I'm in a business and if I leave and another ops person comes along, the semantics of 'business' versus 'personal' account makes their job a little easier. I'm certainly not an expert in the area of SSL, but from long experience in other fields, it's a pain in the arse managing 'business accounts' that are really repurposed individual/private accounts.
Of course it adds something: It makes it more difficult for someone else to go buy a SSL certificate in your name. Security isn't just about driving sales, it's also about protecting yourself and your customers.
No it doesn't. Just because you wasted money on a joke process, doesn't mean "evil attacker X" has to do it too. They can just go ahead and buy a regular cert for your domain still.
Btw, Comodo customer support is rather nice. We recently bought a code signing certificate from them and they walked us through the whole process via chat, worked quite well and we were done in about 30 min.
The flaw basically being that people aren't trustworthy, yes?
Do you have any alternatives? There's ssh's model, where you just hope it's the right certificate the first time; or maybe mob-source it like WoT?
There is also an idea to use proof of work to estabilish network-wide consensus about valid certificates (like bitcoin or namecoin blockchain). This would be fully decentralised solution.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/03/comodo_group_...
Symantec’s family of dominant SSL brands includes VeriSign, GeoTrust, Thawte, RapidSSL and TC Trust Center.
They own about 70% of the certificates, all priced differently to give you an illusion of choice. So if one provider is crappy, their support is the same; and thus they are all crappy.
Except that SSL isn't just about transport-layer security, it's also about identity. The entire model of SSL breaks down if anyone can buy a certificate for anything.