Would it be prudent to try and save a few Rupees on downloading an SSL Certificate when you’ve invested in hosting a website at a cost? Some of the risks and drawbacks of using a free SSL Certificate Vis-a vis-a against a paid SSL Certificate are discussed below.
To begin with, a Commercial website that needs to be trusted by a customer, as it involves Financial Protection, should not take chances of installing a Free SSL Certificate, as some CA’s give Free Certificate for a limited period of time (3 months), but globally recognised brands such as Comodo and DigiCert (formerly Symantec) are trusted.
Second, no tech support is being provided to instal the Free Certificate, so some money would have to be spent on installation.
Free SSL Certificate is not a validated business certificate which reduces the Certificate Trust.
Risk of using SSL Certificate for Free:
Not protected by warranty:
Free SSL Certificate does not cover any amount of warranty that is required in the event of transitional data breach. Although you are protected by paid SSL certificate with a guarantee to protect your company in case of any violation after an SSL certificate is enforced.
No empirical validation:
Free SSL Certificate does not prove domain ownership, it just confirms who owns the domain.
Lifetime short certificate:
Consider also regular renewals which are required with Free SSL Certificates. This adds to efforts to handle SSL certificate bucketing.
No Support Technique:
There is no technical support for the Free SSL Certificate, which results in cost for the installation that will be equal to or greater than the value of the SSL Certificate paid for. Therefore the user has to opt for Paid as it comes with validity, assurance, etc.
Several Domains Cannot cover:
Since Free SSL Certificate does not support multi-domain SSL Certificate, the website owner with multiple domains can not protect all website with Free SSL Certificate.
To be frank, nobody wants to give away anything for free and stay in business for the long term. Some organisations, relying solely on automated systems that bypass authentication to keep costs extremely low, offer free SSL Certificates. These organisations also offer extra programmes at a fee, or are funded with deep pockets from third party organisations.
Authentication is key to online security, authentication guarantees you are the real PayPal.com and not a fake PayPal phishing web site. Companies that provide identity authentication for their certificates follow strict rules to verify the identity of organisations, individuals and the authority to apply for SSL Certificates on behalf of the organisation, free SSL Certificates do not rely on conducting authentication checks or identifying verification, making them a top candidate for today’s fake websites and hacking.
It is very important to use SSL Certificates on all websites that require confidential information to be submitted, the correct use of an SSL Certificate helps to protect your customers and you, because paid certificates are obtained after spending money, it is very likely that he will add trust in the certificate, he will be assured of CA support, a certificate purchased from a trustworthy CA will also be assured