SSL certificate fun

I convinced my boss to go ahead and renew our SSL cert a bit early since we're going to have some major projects soon (migrating core servers to 2008 yay!) and we don't want this to fall through the cracks. We basically rely on it as we have to use it for our TS gateway server. He called Network Solutions yesterday to renew the thing, and today I've tried submitting our renewal CSR with no luck. Then I saw it in our account manager.

Yeah, they didn't renew the cert like he asked. They issued a separate one. Are they all incompetent like this? I spent the last 20 minutes on the phone with someone only to end the call with, yeah we can cancel that other one and issue a renewal but only with your boss. Network Solutions wasn't my choice, but he decided to go with them since they host our domains.

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Comments

tiersten

The answer to your question about whether they're incompetent or not is yes. Network Solutions is something that rhymes with "Ship".

brad-

I use godaddy and their support is outstanding, I cant say enough about it. We host our own site internally, and bought domain names and ssl certs from them...very good at helping me work through problems.

RobertKaucher

I used GoDaddy at previous employer and loved their support. I convinced my current employer to go with them over Thawte. Huge savings.

brad-

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I used GoDaddy at previous employer and loved their support. I convinced my current employer to go with them over Thawte. Huge savings.

Thawte was a little cheaper than Verisign, but they were both in the $400 ballpark for a single domain SSL cert. Godaddy is under $50. I really dont know how thawte and verisign are going to stay in business. SSL is SSL, why would you massively overpay for it?

tiersten

brad- wrote: »

Thawte was a little cheaper than Verisign, but they were both in the $400 ballpark for a single domain SSL cert. Godaddy is under $50. I really dont know how thawte and verisign are going to stay in business. SSL is SSL, why would you massively overpay for it?

You're not comparing the same type of certificate. GoDaddy is still cheaper though.

The under $50 certificate from GoDaddy is the cheapest and most basic kind of SSL which only verifies that you're accessing that particular domain and gives no guarantees about whether the company they're claiming to be is actually who they are.

Those certificates are $50 from GoDaddy, $129 from Network Solutions and $150 from Thawte.

The prices get more expensive when you add the company verification step and even more expensive when you add the Extended Validation option.

blargoe

We got away from Network Solutions a couple of years ago and started using Entrust. MUCH easier to deal with and about 1/3 cheaper.

brad-

tiersten wrote: »

The prices get more expensive when you add the company verification step and even more expensive when you add the Extended Validation option.

Even the EVSSL from godaddy was much cheaper. We've purchased both and there's really no reason to buy from a more expensive company.

Thanks for showing updated prices though, I havent bothered to shop them in years because godaddy's allround support is just phenomenal.

tiersten

brad- wrote: »

Even the EVSSL from godaddy was much cheaper. We've purchased both and there's really no reason to buy from a more expensive company.

Yup. I agree with you. GoDaddy is still cheaper and you get exactly the same type of certificate. Bit silly that the prices vary so much. If its was only 10-20 bucks then sure, you'll probably just stick to the vendor you always use and eat any difference in price but not this much!

Maybe the other SSL certificates come printed on a sheet of embossed gold and the downloaded copy is premium unused 1s and 0s

stuh84

The only reason I could see would be companies like Verisign are going to be trusted more Godaddy, so for places who are really **** about security, it may be preferred to go with a Verisign or similar certificate.