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Summary: obtain a certificate from StartSSL. They provide free certificates as long as it is for an individual, not a company's website. Their process to get a cert is a little more difficult that the competition, but konklone.com provides a nice step-by-step guide.


Nope, you can use it for a company as well.


If you read their terms, and I have, you definitely can't use the free certs for shopping or banking sites. It's kind of vague as to whether you can use it for a commercial site that doesn't involve shopping or banking though.


I did read their terms, which is why I posted that. Nowhere does it say that you can't use the free certificate for a company. In fact if you read their FAQ ("The certificate is for my company, what shall I do?") it says "even in case he/she decides to obtain certification as an employee or representative of an organization". So it is specifically saying that you can use it for a company website.

Also it doesn't say in policy.pdf that you can't use it for banking. It just says you can't have a subdomain with the word "bank" or similar in it. So you could use the free certificate for an online bank, although it's probably not the best idea :)

Please don't downvote me just because you didn't read the terms properly. My comment above was correct.


@cpncrunch, you need to re-read section 3.1.2.1 of StartSSL's policy:

  Class 1 certificates are limited to client and server
  certificates, whereas the later is restricted in its usage for
  non-commercial purpose only. Subscribers MUST upgrade to Class
  2 or higher level for any domain and site of commercial nature,
  when using high-profile brands and names or if involved in
  obtaining or relaying sensitive information such as health
  records, financial details, personal information etc.
That said, if you're a business, you pay $60 to get verified for a year, and then you can create as many certificates as you want.


Ah, yes, you're correct. I guess their FAQ just needs clarified a bit.




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