Startcom StartSSL Certs

[steed]

Hi,

I have been looking into wildcard certs as I am making a new app that will need quite a few subdomains. Until now I have been using single rapidssl certs. Now after searching I came across StartSSL https://www.startssl.com/?app=39

They claim to offer a wild card cert for 2yr for $60 that also supports altnerate names. Its like they are giving it away. So my real question is does anybody have any experience with them ?

Any advice on these guys in specific as well as their certs will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Steed.

[Tim the Techxpert]

Hi steed,
The offer certainly looks attractive and at that price with alternate names it does sound like it is for free. My customers use SSL certificates all the time and from a variety of suppliers but I don't remember seeing this name before. I would suggest a little caution. Why not protect your site for the new app with one that you know. With your site secure you can then look into alternatives like this one. Of course let us know how you get on as at that price I can see a lot of people wanting to try them.

[steed]

Hi steed,
The offer certainly looks attractive and at that price with alternate names it does sound like it is for free. My customers use SSL certificates all the time and from a variety of suppliers but I don't remember seeing this name before. I would suggest a little caution. Why not protect your site for the new app with one that you know. With your site secure you can then look into alternatives like this one. Of course let us know how you get on as at that price I can see a lot of people wanting to try them.

Upon further inspection it appears they do not charge for the certs themselves, they charge for the validation. You have to validate yourself, as well as validate your company to get a class 2 cert. This means you actually pay $59.9*2=$119.8
After they have validated you they let you issue multiple certs if needed. Or at least that is how I understood their FAQ.

I naturally dont like paying through the nose for certs, so when I see cheaper offers, I like to investigate. While going with RapidSSL(What I have been using for single certs) could be nice, they are sadly quite expensive($126.88 via namecheap for 1yr) for wildcard cert, also they dont support the Alternative names cept for the domain itself.

[Tim the Techxpert]

Glad you read the small print. Many of my customers have used RapidSSL and some have used Thawte. Thawte are not the least expensive but the speed with which they provide the certificates is one of the reason that they continue to be used. Maybe have a look at them?