Best FREE SSL Hosting
SSL is a MUST for secure data transaction on website especially for those shopping cart sites. Only after you enabled ssl connection on your store site, people be able order safely and pay the service/products. If you haven't got one or not sure how to choose, we're going to introduce the best FREE ssl hosting provider as well as free ssl service to secure your business.
Best FREE SSL Web Hosting
The best free ssl hosting awards goes to Hostgator for fast and reliable server with FREE SSL support! If you're looking for reliable and costive ssl hosting solution, hostgator is absolutely perfect choice today!
Hostgator FREE SSL hosting details
Dedicated SSL is offered for business plan and enterprise plan(windows) only. The starter or baby plans does not offer free ssl certificate. The business or enterprise hosting plan is the highest shared hosting solution by hostgator. The plan comes with following leading supports
- Linux /Windows 2008 R2 support
- Unlimited Ms SQL /Mysql database support
- Multiple domain names hosting support
- FREE Domain Registration opportunity
- SSH /Remote IIS manager support
- >>Check more features
While we pay about $100/yr for the service we will get dedicated 256 bit ssl certificate which actually costs us another $100 if purchase separately from ssl provider. Furthermore, SSL installation will require a static IP address which normally costs us $2/mo or more. It's offered completely free via hostgator. Totally we have saved $120/yr at least with their service. The best of the best is we can also take advantage of this hostgator coupon "review25off" for additional 25% discount by signing up hostgator hosting!
Go to www.Hostgator.com and view free ssl details!
While Hostgator offered free ssl via shared hosting plan, another top hosting brand Arvixe also provides Free ssl support over business class hosting plans. The arvixe business class hosting is simply semi dedicated server based where we just don't have root access to hosting server. If you have outgrowed the shared environment and need higher hosting solution but don't want to manage a server by yourself, this service is absolutely the best choice. While you can get same or even better service than VPS server, you leave all server end tasks to support team and enjoy the best hosting service. Take a quick look from this screenshot
Arvixe will renew the SSL certificate for your account as long as your keep the hosting service with them. Also, no matter if you purchase SSL from Arvixe or anywhere else, their support will install on your site for free! In same cases, it can be installed instantly!
Go to www.Arvixe.com for free ssl hosting plans!
Dedicated SSL vs Shared SSL
Almost every hosting providers offered free shared ssl to their clients. It doesn't require separate installtion over your account and enabled as default. Since there's already free shared ssl why do we have to purchase a dedicated one? The answer is about authority and professionality.
Shared SSL is installed on hosting providers' website as wildcard certificate for example on *.hostgator.com. That's how they can offer shared ssl service to every clients. In order to use this certificate, you have to use https on this url(It's known as tem URL) instead your own domain names. In this way you have to change your code to work with another domain address and in case your clients have notified the address change when ordering, they might hesitate to make payment. You're in risk of loosing business by using shared ssl although it's functional the same as dedicated ssl.
Dedicated ssl certificate will keep everything on your own domain so you don't have to make further change. Once installation is completed you can use https address for your secure site.
FREE SSL Provider?
Is there any free ssl certificate service? Yes there indeed has some free ssl providers like startssl. You just follow their policy and verify your domain ownership and complete the registration, then you can get a one year free certificate for your website. We personally have not used this service. Based their feedbacks, it looks like their certificate is best for personal site security. The free one is offered on 128 bit which is not suitable for business purpose. If you have a big website with lots of online transaction, you need 256 bit ssl at least for reliable encryption.
More About SSL Certificate
SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layer, it's a protocol that provides communication security over the Internet. The SSL protocol was originally developed by Netscape. Version 1.0 was never publicly released; version 2.0 was released in February 1995 but "contained a number of security flaws which ultimately led to the design of SSL version 3.0." SSL version 3.0, released in 1996, was a complete redesign of the protocol produced by Paul Kocher working with Netscape engineers Phil Karlton and Alan Freier. Newer versions of SSL/TLS are based on SSL 3.0. The 1996 draft of SSL 3.0 was published by IETF as a historical document in RFC 6101.
Read more about SSL on Wikipedia.