SSL Certificate FAQ

Secure Sockets Layer, SSL, is the standard security technology for creating an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browser remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. In order to be able to generate an SSL link, a web server requires an SSL Certificate. Our InstantSSL is such a Certificate, and when installed, can be used to create secure links to protect transactions, passwords, personal details, etc.

C I Host has direct access to the IdAuthority, the largest commercial directory on the web. C I Host can therefore expedite the validation of an application. This efficient and highly effective validation method ensures we can issue a Certificate at a greatly reduced cost as reflected through our guaranteed lowest price in the industry as well as maintain a level of validation far superior to the methods employed by other SSL providers. In particular, the validation process employed to issue any of our certificates is considerably more than just a domain name ownership check - we firmly believe this method alone to be insufficient to maintain the level of integrity in SSL that consumers have come to expect.

In order for your customer's browser to seamlessly use an InstantSSL Certificate, they must trust our 'Root Certificate'. Our Root (provided by Baltimore Technologies) is trusted by over 99% of all current browsers, comprising all Internet Explorer 5.00 and above, Netscape 4x and above and AOL 5 and above and comes pre-installed with all Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems. This browser compatibility makes our InstantSSL as trusted as Verisign and Thawte.

If you require an increased warranty on your SSL Certificate, choose from the InstantSSL Pro or PremiumSSL Certificates option. This provides a greatly increased warranty of $2500 and $10,000 respectively.

Provided we have sufficient validation information available through the IdAuthority, your InstantSSL, InstantSSL Pro or PremiumSSL can be issued in only minutes. If additional verification processes must be used to validate your application, the issuance process may take slightly longer. In such cases we guarantee that the Certificate is issued within 2 working days.

C I Host InstantSSL certificates are compatible with any browsers and webservers using SSL version 3 - the de facto SSL implementation. SSL version 1 and version 2 have been superseded by version 3 for a number of years, mainly due to the inherent security flaws found in these old versions. All web browsers developed after Internet Explorer 3 and Netscape 3 use SSL version 3 (however still support older SSL protocol versions). If your webserver is only capable of supporting versions 1 and 2 of the SSL protocol we strongly recommend you contact your webserver software vendor for an update - these protocols are flawed.