We have been going with Verisign’s 128-bit SSL certificates for several years and time has come for us to renew it again.
Verisign’s certificate costs $1000/year whereas the rest of their competitors are charging significantly less than them. For example Network Solutions’ is $130/year, GeoTrust’s is $60/ year.
Is their any advantage in going with Verisign besides getting to boast thier reputable seal on our web sites? Of course Verisign is leader in SSL market and is very well recognized, but is there any thing else we’re getting besides that, (for example in terms of technology they are using), which justifies their high cost?
Sky... I would include and perhaps even recommend Thawte over GeoTrust.
I'm not too familiar with Network Solutions as a CA though...
If you're looking for a "cheap" solution, then QuickSSL or DigiCert might interest you as well, but again that's all meant to give you a "price comparison".
Back to your question now about the price differential. I personally think VeriSign is overpriced because of their brandname. That being said, I pay very little attention to websites which use the likes of GeoTrust because anyone can practically acquire and install certificates for any types of sites. This is in stark contrast to the likes of VeriSign and even Thawte (much much cheaper than VeriSign) who actually make an effort to verify the business and operations of every company it issues a certificate for.
In academic talk, there's much stronger institution based structural assurance with the likes of VeriSign, Thawte and Entrust.
Lastly, even though functionality-wise, all of them may be X.509 compliant, I'm not too sure about the credentials that get validated when these CAs issue the certs. For VeriSign and Thawte, I know for a fact that they validate your Your CN, OU, O, L, S, C.
Umar - that's what I thought that Verisign is overpriced primarily because of it's name.
Our primary reason for SSL is ofcouse to have a secure end-to-end communication over the net, but also to make our client's at ease when they see a brand name seal. Of couse Verisign serves that purpose really well but I don't think their cost is justifiable, so I have decided to try someone other than them.
I think Network Solutions is a recent CA. I thought that them and Verisign had merged few years back, so I'm not sure why they are providing this service under NetSol's brand. Anyways, since name brand is a factor, I think more people have heard of Network Solutions than Thawte or GeoTrust, so I'm leaning more towards them right now. I guess tech savy people would recognize Thawte, but I doubt that majority of people we deal with for business opportunities would have heard of them.
^ I agree... VeriSign has indeed been very successful in portraying itself as a genuine and distinctive security service provider and by that token, it has a significant clientele base from the high-end companies. That being said, I've come across way too many people who just don't know that there are alternatives to VeriSign.
When it comes to a brand that commands a sizeable consumer share of mind, there's no match for VeriSign although they've recently lost considerable consumer share of pocket by virtue of their declining market share.... thanks to the likes of you :) who've started questioning their value proposition.
you’ll find tons of these “free” ones out there… another one is rapidssl.com but then again, they’re harly a Certificate “Authority” cuz they can’t be trusted.
abey aisey tow mey bhi apna certificate generate karr ke apne aap ko CA ki list me daal sakta hooN through JSDK KeyTool - like this one here:
- like this one here: