107
Paid SSL vs Letsencrypt
(lemmy.ml)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
107 points (100.0% liked)
Selfhosted
61544 readers
580 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil.
-
No spam.
-
Posts are to be related to self-hosting.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.
-
Submission headline should match the article title.
-
No trolling.
-
Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.
-
AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
LetsEncrypt is legit. A downside is that the certs expire after 90 days. However, that also carries an upside in that it limits the damage in case a certificate is compromised. There are procedures by which you can automatically renew/request (I forget whether they allow renewing an existing cert or require a brand new one) LE certs and apply them to your application, but that can be fiddly to configure.
If you're not comfortable with configuring automatic certificate cycling, a long-term paid cert would be more appropriate.
I didn't say it isn't legit nor I distrust automation, but I would like to see anyone operating an online shop paid for a cert to show they are honest and won't diappear in thin air not delivering. Am I going to get back what I paid, properly not, but a basic DV cert isn't expensive either for a business.
LetsEncrypt certs are DV certs. That a put a TXT record for LetsEncrypt vs a TXT record for a paid DigiCert makes no difference whatsoever.
I just checked and Shopify uses a LetsEncrypt cert, so that's a big one that uses the plebian certs.
The difference between $0 and $50 isn't really relevant.
Then I don't see any problem for them just put down $50 more.
Bad actors can afford $50 the same as good ones.
Would you accept a certificate issued by AWS (Amazon)? Or GCP (Google)? Or azure (Microsoft)? Do you visit websites behind cloudflare with CF issued certs? Because all 4 of those certificates are free. There is no identity validation for signing up for any of them really past having access to some payment form (and I don't even think all of them do even that). And you could argue between those 4 companies it's about 80-90% of the traffic on the internet these days.
Paid vs free is not a reliable comparison for trust. If anything, non-automated processes where a random engineer just gets the new cert and then hopefully remembers to delete it has a number of risk factors that doesn't exist with LE (or other ACME supporting providers).
It makes sense that they issue short certificates, though. The sole verification is that you own the domain. If you sell/let the domain lapse and someone else takes it over, there's only a limited time you would hold a valid certificate for it.