When you have invested in hosting a website at a cost, would it be wise to try and save a few Rupees on installing an SSL Certificate? Explained below are some of the risks and disadvantages of using a free SSL Certificate Vis-a vis a paid SSL Certificate.

To start with, a Commercial website which needs to be trusted by a visitor, as it involves Financial Security, should not take chances with installing a Free SSL Certificate, as a few CA’s are offering Free Certificate for a short duration (3 Months), however globally accepted Brands like Comodo and DigiCert (Formerly Symantec) are trusted brands.

Secondly, no tech support for installing the Free Certificate is offered, hence some money will have to be spent on installation.

Free SSL Certificate is not Business Validated, which reduces the Trust of the Certificate.

Few Drawbacks of FREE SSL Certificate:

1) SSL Certificate Warranty:

Free SSL Certificate does not cover any Warranty amount offered by paid Certificates, which is required in case of a hack of data in transition when the there is a paid SSL Certificate on the website, the website owner can claim from the CA the guaranteed amount, this does not exist in case of a Free SSL Certificate.

2) Ownership:

Free SSL Certificate does not prove the ownership of the domain, it proves only who controls it.

3) Renewal of SSL Certificate:

Also, consider the repeated renewals that are mandatory with Free SSL Certificates.

To be honest, no one would like to give something away for free and remain in business long-term.  Certain organizations provide free SSL Certificates, solely relying on automated systems which skip authentication to keep costs extremely low. These organizations often provide add-on services for a fee or they are funded by third-party organizations with deep pockets.

Authentication is critical to online trust, authentication provides the assurance that you’re the real PayPal.com and not a fake PayPal phishing website. CAs which include identity authentication for their certificates follow strict rules for verifying the identity of the organizations, individuals, and the authority to request SSL Certificates on behalf of the organization, free SSL Certificates don’t rely on performing the authentication checks or identify verification, making them a prime candidate for fraudulent websites today and hacking.

It is very important to use SSL Certificates on all Websites that require sending sensitive information, Proper use of an SSL Certificate helps protect your customers and you, since paid certificates are acquired after spending money it is very likely that he would add trust in the certificate, he is assured of support from the CA, a certificate purchased from a reputed CA will also be assured of Brand security, let us consider the fact that a proper validation is done prior to the issuance of a certificate and finally the purchaser has the options to choose from a variety of Brands and types of SSL Certificate.