Posts Tagged ‘Trust Service’

Which Site Seal do People Trust the Most? (2013 Survey Results)

We just found some interesting third-party research from the Baymard Institute regarding consumer’s perceptions of SSL and Trust seals. The survey, from January 2013, specifically focused in on e-commerce websites and gave the following results, showing Trust seals outpacing all of the SSL seals with the exception of Norton.

Its an interesting article and I recommend clicking through to read more about the results and some of the implications. Including their suggestion sites show multiple seals to increase perceived site security; while also of course improving site security.

SAN and wildcard certificates – what’s the difference?

Last week OpenSRS added a bunch of new SSL certificate products to our already extensive lineup, and lowered costs on EV and a couple of popular wildcard certificates.

The new certs are all Subject Alternative Name or SAN certificates – they allow for more than one fully qaulified domain name to be protected using a single certificate.

The certificate information for a GeoTrust EV certificate with the SAN option. In this case, a single certificate for geotrust.com also protects geotrust.net.

Since the launch, we’ve received a few queries about SAN certificates and how they differ from wildcard certs. With that in mind, I’ve put together a quick reference guide here.

Let’s start with a basic look at both wildcard and SAN certs.

Wildcard: a wildcard certificate allows for unlimited subdomains to be protected with a single certificate. For example, you could use a wildcard certificate for the domain name opensrs.com and that cert would also work for mail.opensrs.com, ftp.opensrs.com and any other subdomain. The wildcard refers to the fact that the cert is provisioned for *.opensrs.com.
SAN: a SAN cert allows for multiple domain names to be protected with a single certificate. For example, you could get a certificate for opensrs.com, and then add more SAN values to have the same certificate protect opensrs.org, opensrs.net and even tucows.com.

Some important things to note:

Depending on the specific brand and certificate product, the SAN cert will include either one or four additional domains at the price quoted on our chart. Additional SAN values can usually be added up to a maximum number of either 5 or 25 total domains (including the base domain).

In most cases, the SAN values can be changed at anytime during the life of the certificate – you’d just need to change the value, and then do a free re-issue.

When to choose a wildcard, and when to choose a SAN:

Wildcard certs are great for protecting multiple subdomains on a single domain. In many cases, the wildcard cert makes more sense than a SAN because it allows for unlimited subdomains and you don’t need to define them at the time of purchase. You could provision *.opensrs.com and in at anytime during the life of the certificate, you decided to add www3.opensrs.com or mail.opensrs.com, that cert would just work, no reissue required.

If, on the other hand, you need to protect multiple domain names, then the SAN certificate might be the right choice. Protecting alternative domains with the same website (opensrs.com and opensrs.net) is a great example. One caveat – you need to define the additional domains and add them to the certificate for it to work.

SAN certificates, like wildcard certs, are a great way to save some money and also to make administration a bit easier as you can reduce the number of certificates provisioned since they cover multiple domains.

One last note – the unique QuickSSL Premium with SAN:

We also sell a bit of a hybrid product – the GeoTrust QuickSSL Premium with SAN. This cert is a bit different than the rest of our SAN products. It allows for the protection of four subdomains in addition to the base domain. That makes it more like a restricted wildcard certificate than a true SAN. You also have to add the subdomains at the time of purchase, and they can’t be altered once the cert is provisioned.

You might wonder, as I did initially, why it even exists. Priced at $125, it’s a lower cost product that’s quite a bit cheaper than our least expensive wildcard certificate (the Comodo SSL Wildcard – $199). It’s also a domain-validated certificate (as opposed to being organizationally validated as all of our other SAN certs are) which means that issuance is fast.

For applications where you know the subdomains that you want to have protected, the GeoTrust QuickSSL Premium with SAN is a nice option.

Further questions? Just ask!

I hope that helps a bit in terms of understanding the applications for both these new SAN certificates and also for wildcard certs. If you have any questions about which certificate is best for your customer’s specific application, feel free to ask in the comments of this post, or get in touch with OpenSRS Reseller Support.

Big SSL News: New Super Low EV Pricing and UC/SAN Certs

We have some big news to share today regarding SSL certificates. There are two parts to the announcement, and both are pretty exciting:

First off, we’re cutting pricing on Extended Validation certificates across the board. We’re getting very aggressive with EV SSL pricing and we’re committed to being the low price leader in the category and to making EV more accessible for your small- and mid-sized business customers.

Next, we’re bringing UC/SAN certificates to OpenSRS. For those who have been asking about UC/SAN certs, the wait is over – you can now add the UC/SAN option to many of our SSL certificate products including Symantec, GeoTrust and Thawte brands. That further cements your ability to provide the appropriate certificate to your customers no matter the brand, certificate type, price point or level of protection required.

We’ve updated our Trust Service pricing page on OpenSRS.com to provide you with more information including the new pricing for EV certificates, and which products have the new UC/SAN option.

The SSL pricing chart is getting a bit out of hand (in a good way) with over 40 products, so we added some nifty filtering and sorting options that let you narrow down the product list and zero in on what you want to sell. Check it out!

We’re happy to answer any questions you might have. Drop a comment on this post, visit the OpenSRS forum, or contact Reseller Support.

Get a Year of SiteLock Free for Your Site

Last year we partnered with SiteLock to offer our resellers a great wholesale price on their malware scanning product. Since then, many of you have expressed interest (both enthusiasm and doubt) in the service, the features and the benefits to your clients.

So like buying a car, we want you to take SiteLock out for a test drive, so you can in turn offer it to your customers with confidence. For the next two months we’re offering all of our current resellers one-year free of SiteLock Basic.

All you need to do is buy and implement SiteLock on your own site, then fill out this form for a full rebate. And as a little extra bonus, we’ll randomly select two resellers for a free upgrade to either SiteLock Premium or Enterprise. We’ll have this offer available until August 31, 2012.

—

Want to know more about SiteLock? We have an archived webinar available that explains the service and features.

Even More Choice in SSL with Comodo SSL Domain Validated Certificates

We’ve just added two great new Comodo SSL products to the already extensive lineup of SSL and trust products available through your OpenSRS Reseller account.

These two new Comodo SSL Digital Certificates — Comodo SSL and Comodo SSL Wildcard — are exclusive to OpenSRS at launch.

Both new products are available today through the Trust Manager tab in OpenSRS Control Panel and via the OpenSRS API. Full pricing and product details for these and the rest of the Comodo SSL product line is available on our website.

Powerful, Affordable Protection

Comodo SSL provides powerful, cost-effective security to e-commerce sites. Comodo SSL provides all the same features as the rest of the Comodo SSL line, including 256-bit encryption along with the widely recognized Comodo site seal.
Comodo SSL Wildcard adds wildcard support allowing purchasers to protect unlimited sub-domains with a single SSL certificate.

More Choice

These two new SSL products from Comodo further expand the OpenSRS Trust Service product line-up. With even more choice in brands and products across a range of price points, our Resellers have the ability to satisfy the varied security needs of their customers, from individuals to small businesses and right up to the largest enterprise customers.