LetsEncrypt: The Free HTTPS Certificate Generator [product overview]

LetsEncrypt is a free way to set up your websites to use HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. In this article, we will explore the benefits of doing so and how to accomplish it using LetsEncrypt.

LetsEncrypt and HTTPS

Before getting into the specifics of using LetsEncrypt, it’s important to make sure that everyone is on the same page. In this section, we’ll discuss HTTPS, LetsEncrypt and why using HTTPS is important for website owners.

What Is HTTPS?

When you visit a website, you have two options: HTTP and HTTPS. Both of these options offer the same functionality of providing Web-based content to you, but HTTPS offers a bit more in terms of security.

The first differentiator between HTTP and HTTPS is that traffic in HTTPS is encrypted. While an eavesdropper can see the site that you visited, they can’t see any of the data that you send to/from that site. This provides a huge increase in privacy over HTTP, where all information is transmitted in the clear.

The other main advantage of HTTPS is authentication. Anyone can set up a website and may even be able to trick DNS servers (the ones who convert the URL that you type into the website’s IP address) into thinking that they’re the real thing.

HTTPS makes this harder by requiring a website to have a valid SSL certificate. Your computer trusts a set of root Certificate Authorities and will trust any certificate signed by a trusted root CA either directly or indirectly (through a chain of CAs where each CA is authenticated by the previous one in the chain). If you visit a website with a valid SSL certificate, it’s more likely to be the real thing.

What Is LetsEncrypt?

LetsEncrypt is a root Certificate Authority that tries to make it fast (Read more...)