Lets Encrypt: Free SSL Certificates. How will other certificate authorities compete?

[graeme]

Let's Encrypt is good because it will allow people to use SSL with their crappy blogs or photo galleries that nobody but themselves and their family want to look at but it'sl not going to replace paid OV and EV certificates used by many businesses (their certificates will probably be very popular with summer hosts though who don't want to make a "large investment" of $10 in a paid cert).

AWS uses a certificate that is not EV and has no organisation info. Not a summer host! Online retailers seem to use a mix of cert types.


I do not understand the point of OV certs. There is no obvious indication of the difference so very few people will notice that it is any different from DV.

DV certificates are a big chuck of the certificate issuing business (lower cost but bigger volume), and it must be high margin (because it is entirely automated).

 

[Localnode]

Why do people pay more for a Symantec, Thawte, or Globalsign certificate when Comodo are super cheap?


I don't see Comodo, or any other CA having trouble. Symantec has its brand name and their little "trust seal" while Globalsign has Stop The Hacker, and Comodo has their hackerproof thing.
EV and OV SSL's will always have a place - and I don't see LE planning on issuing those.

 

[AMDbuilder]

Why do people pay more for a Symantec, Thawte, or Globalsign certificate when Comodo are super cheap?

Why does someone buy their hosting from you instead of someone else?

 

[River]

Why do people pay more for a Symantec, Thawte, or Globalsign certificate when Comodo are super cheap?


I don't see Comodo, or any other CA having trouble. Symantec has its brand name and their little "trust seal" while Globalsign has Stop The Hacker, and Comodo has their hackerproof thing.
EV and OV SSL's will always have a place - and I don't see LE planning on issuing those.

Because people are paying for the name. Why does someone buy the Corvette when the Honda does just fine?


Another thing is sometimes they will offer like $1 million in insurance for hacked sites or whatever, they all probably don't do that. So it might be feature (addon) based as well.

 

[Localnode]

Because people are paying for the name. Why does someone buy the Corvette when the Honda does just fine?


Another thing is sometimes they will offer like $1 million in insurance for hacked sites or whatever, they all probably don't do that. So it might be feature (addon) based as well.





 

I basically did say they paid for the brand name...

 

[graeme]

CYA. The cost is small in context, its not their money (its the companies) and by using a known brand they cover themselves if something goes wrong.


This is the reasoning behind almost all technology (product and service) purchases.

 

[retrack]

Automated or not, free or not, a CA is all about trust and this is relative to everyone's environment. StartSSL presumably linked to Chinese government (not my statement) https://pierrekim.github.io/blog/2016-02-16-why-i-stopped-using-startssl-because-of-qihoo-360.html will be ok for some but not for others. Likewise where Letsencrypt brings massive improvements on the technical security layer with the automated process, the trustworthiness is not the same for everyone.

 

[SafehouseCloud]

Seems until now not so much changed on he market.