Webhosts Charging for 3rd-Party SSL Certificate Installation

[TheAlex]

Is this common? Vidahost charge £20+ a year for use of a third-party SSL certificate (their own cheapest option is £47). I've looked around, and some hosts don't accept third-party certificates, and others don't mention whether they do or not.

I've generally been happy with Vidahost, but the cost for third-party SSL means it might be cheaper for me to move hosts now, even though I have 2 years left before my account is affected by their price increase.

I've been reading around the forums, and Krystal look like a good option. I notice they offer a free SSL certificate (possibly Lets Encrypt?), and also have a tutorial for installing third-party SSL certificates, which it seems they don't charge for. Unlimited bandwidth is also a plus, so I don't have to worry about anything going viral on my site (it's happened twice, and in a nervy last few days of the month got to almost 100% of my bandwidth each time)!

Does anyone have experience using Krystal's free SSL certificates? Is their speed good? I only need domain-validated SSL as I have a simple e-mail subscribe form, and selling is done via Paypal.

Vidahost once helped with something I didn't think was necessarily under their remit, so I have valued their support in the past. It'd be good to know I won't be fobbed off if I need similar help from Krystal.

Even 34sp, who I moved to Vidahost from due to a large difference in costs, are now looking decent value again, and also offer a free SSL certificate (via Lets Encrypt).

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[On Holiday]

 

[TheAlex]

Not something I've heard of tbh. If you have cPanel hosting then you can generally upload and install SSL certificates via your control panel yourself.

That's what I thought, but strangely (I thought, for Vidahost), they don't allow it. I even checked with their support.

What's your monthly bandwidth usage out of interest?

I can't personally recommend any companies as I host my own and others websites from my own dedicated cPanel server, but I know that cPanel do provide Auto-SSL free of charge now so I'd look for a provider that will provide this.

It's about 5GB a month, if I exclude the 2 months where it's nearly exceeded 50GB.

 

[touch]

If your host doesnt use SNI (to be compatible with pre-Vista website visitors) then they'll need to allocate individual IP addresses to each HTTPS site so might be charging you for the address. That would also be why you cant just install the certificate yourself through their control panel.

 

[TheAlex]

Thanks - maybe it's worth me asking why they charge, when many rivals don't. I was using Windows XP until recently, and you've reminded me I couldn't access some (very few) https websites - I think it was only ever using Opera though. Chrome would show a warning with an option to proceed. Accessing http was never a problem.

 

[TheAlex]

When I pressed Vidahost on this, they said they also offer a free certificate via Let's Encrypt, so I'm not sure why they didn't say that in the first place. It's not mentioned on the main SSL page on their website either.

 

[Beansprout]

I setup the product pricing originally because of the need for an IP address and the time taken to install, ensure the site responded on the old and new IP, fix any certificate issues (remember lots of novices have little idea about a CRT, KEY, etc etc), and so on. It was always more hassle to install a 3rd party SSL than one I bought myself.

I guess most of that still applies these days but with most things supporting SNI, not having a dedicated IP is ok for some/many people, and of course there's also Let's Encrypt etc.

Edit: To be clear I have nothing to do with the company these days.