SSL Certificate Frequently Asked Questions

We have put the following information together based on common questions we are asked. Please Contact Us if you have a question which has not been answered on this page.

The SSL protocol is the web standard for encrypting communications between users and SSL e-commerce sites. Data sent via a SSL connection is protected by encryption, a mechanism that prevents eavesdropping and tampering with any transmitted data. SSL provides businesses and consumers with the confidence that private data sent to a web site, such as credit card numbers, are kept confidential. SSL Certificates are required to initialise an SSL session.

Customers know when they have an SSL session when their browser displays the little gold padlock and the address bar begins with a https rather than http. SSL Certificates can be used on web servers for internet security and mail servers such as IMAP, POP3 and SMTP for mail collection / sending security.

Our wildcard certificates are can be used to secure multiple sub domains on a single domain name. Wildcard allows web sites to conduct secure e-commerce with an encrypted SSL connection, at a fraction of the cost of other wildcard providers.

Find out about RapidSSL® Wildcard, Power ServerID™ Wildcard and True BusinessID® Wildcard.

Some Certification Authorities do not have a Trusted Root CA Certificate present in browsers, or do not use a root that they own, and use a Chained Root in order for their SSL Certificates to be trusted. Essentially a Certification Authority with a Trusted Root CA Certificate issues a Chained Certificate which inherits the browser recognition of the Trusted Root CA. These SSL Certificates are known as Chained Root SSL Certificates.

Most SSL Certificates are issued by Certification Authorities who own and use their own Trusted Root CA Certificates. We only issue SSL Certificates that are Single Root, this means they have already been added into the browser by the browser vendor and are regarded as highly trusted. Some newer certificates (such as Extended Validation SSL Certificates) may contain a Chained Certificate, however we will only provide Chained Certificates when the Certification Authority owns the Root Certificate associated with it.

You can view the Certification Authorities who have and use their own root certificates by viewing the list in your browser.

For a Certification Authority to have and use its own Trusted Root CA Certificate already present in browsers is a clear sign that they are long time, stable and credible organizations who have long term relationships with the browser vendors (such as Microsoft, Mozilla and Netscape) for the inclusion of their Trusted Root CA Certificates. For this reason, such Certification Authorities are seen as being considerably more credible and stable than chained root certificate providers who do not have a direct relationship with the browser vendors, or do not use their own root certificates to issue SSL Certificates.

FreeSSL is a fully functional Single Root test certificate valid for 30 days. It is the only fully trusted Single Root trial certificate available. If you need to test your server, or would like to test our support and issuance speed then FreeSSL is an ideal solution.

You can order as many FreeSSL Certificates as required for testing purposes.

Our certificates are compatible with IE 5.01+, Netscape 4.7+, Mozilla 1+, AOL 5+, Firefox, Safari and many newer Windows and Macintosh based browsers. Single Root certificates are also more widely accepted by servers - some servers do not accept Chained Root technology.

If you need an SSL Certificate right away online ordering system ensures that you will receive it within a matter of minutes. Some products require documentation to be provided, however these products clearly display the requirements within the product description pages.

We do not limit the amount of certificates that can be ordered. Go ahead and get as many as you need!

Browser ubiquity is the term used in the industry to describe the estimated percentage of internet users that will inherently trust an SSL Certificate. The lower the browser ubiquity, the less people will trust your certificate - clearly, if you are operating a commercial site you require as many people as possible to trust your SSL Certificate. As a general rule, any SSL Certificate with over 95% browser ubiquity is acceptable for a commercial site.

Ubiquity is however not the only consideration in deciding whether one SSL Certificate is better than another. Many companies running high transaction volume web sites need to maximize customer confidence and therefore buy certificates from well known, long time security vendors and mostly use the major players.

An SSL Certificate is issued to a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). This means that an SSL Certificate issued to "secure.domain.com" cannot be used on different sub domains, such as "www.domain.com". To get around this restriction we have wildcard certificates. Wildcard certificates allow you to secure multiple sub domains on the same domain name, thereby saving you time and money, and of course you do not need to manage multiple certificates on the same server. Most customers secure "www.domain.com" and utilise wildcard certificates if their SSL requirements change.