Dear Customers,

From today we are supporting Let’s Encrypt (free SSL certificates) for all our Web Hosting customers, our aim is to make sure your website is always secure and data is always protected, by offering this as standard to all we can accomplish this.

More About SSL & Let’s Encrypt:

There are three basic types of SSL certificate available from commercial CAs (Certificate Authorities): domain validation (DV), organisation validation (OV) and extended validation (EV).

With DV, the CA verifies that the party requesting the certificate is in control of the applicable domain, while with OV, the CA also verifies the name, location and existence of the organisation associated with the domain. EV involves the heaviest vetting, with the CA going to great lengths to verify the status of the certificate purchaser as a legal entity, including manual checks by a human.

Due to the way its automated systems are set up, Let’s Encrypt can only provide DV certificates. While this may be enough for many sites, anyone looking for a higher level of verification – and the increased trust that comes with it – will need to look at the paid certificates, you can submit a support ticket if you are looking at paid certificates, we can get this setup for you.

With only a small team of humans at the heart of all that automation, Let’s Encrypt can’t provide direct technical support to its users. Extensive documentation is available, and there’s always the community support forum, but this will only get you so far when it comes to more complex technical issues. We (Dribb) cannot support these certificates outside what is available via the documentation and community forums.

With a certificate from a commercial CA, you usually get access to some form of direct technical support and troubleshooting advice should anything go wrong and Dribb can assist where needed.

Premium certificates will also usually come with a warranty – essentially a form of insurance against the unlikely event of certificate failure, fraudulent transactions and end-users losing money. Let’s Encrypt certificates do not offer any form of warranty.

Ultimately, Let’s Encrypt is ideal for taking a first step into the world of HTTPS – and it makes perfect sense, with Google and others pushing the entire web towards HTTPS adoption. For smaller sites and blogs, where HTTPS is nice to have but not mission-critical, Let’s Encrypt is a great option.

But for enterprise-level sites, especially ones that handle sensitive data, the benefits of a premium SSL certificate can’t be overstated. If you’re running an ecommerce platform, or any business that takes payment details online, customer data is one of your most valuable assets – something for which you’ll always want to ensure the maximum level of security. While Let’s Encrypt can provide SSL protection, it can’t provide the comprehensive coverage and reliability offered by a paid-for certificate.

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Regards,
Emily Bremmer
Customer Services