ssl certificate, necesarry? Anyone will do as are cheap and expensive

[helenp]

Hi,
I am implanting paypal and dont think a ssl certificate is necesarry as Paypal are going to handle the credit card details, however maybe people dont trust when they start to add information if they dont see an [....]

So I wonder as I donīt understand anything about the difference, I checked verisign that have 4 diferent types and of course to expensive for me. I also checked Godaddy that is only 9.99$/year.

Can somebody please give there opinion, if necesarry and if the cheapest will do, just to get https:// in the bar.
I suppose there will be more than 1 url in the same domain that should have it.

Thanks,
Helen

[particleman]

If customers type any information in YOUR site then yes you need SSL. Having a certificate is an important part and making sure the customer is actually on the SSL (https) version of your site. Cheap certificates work just fine as far as encryption.

[helenp]

Thanks so then I can go for godaddy or anyone else.
What I dont understand is the encryptation, verisign has one with 40 and one with 256-bit I think.
And also would I need one for each page, or one for the domain is enough?
Thanks a lot.

[particleman]

There are plenty of helpful info articles out there but in short. Godaddy's cheap SSL certs work fine at the base encryption. What you pay more for is the verification process. That tells customers you are in fact who you say you are. This is not well known therefore not that big of a deal to a customer as much as seeing the "lock" on the browser because that is what the media has taught them.

You buy certificates per domain name. If you host on a shared host you must have your own ip address also or you cannot use SSL.

[helenp]

Thanks, that was helpful, didnīt know that I need a privat ip..
In cpanel I have SSL/TLS Manager, and in knowledges it says nothing about needing a privat ip, it says this about configuring:

Once you've purchased an SSL certificate, you will receive an email with a link to issue the certificate. Follow these steps to configure the SSL certificate:

Once you've clicked the link in your email, it will take you to a web page to issue your SSL certificate.

On the 'Web Server Type' field, select 'cPanel/WHM' (Example)

Copy and paste the CSR which you've generated within cPanel or WHM.

Fill out the rest of the fields accordingly for the organization, company or site the SSL certificate is being issued for.

Once this is completed your SSL certificate will be issued and you will then be able to install it through the 'SSL/TLS Manager' in cPanel.