There's been a lot of press lately about Let's Encrypt, the initiative to create free SSL/TLS certificates. Of course, you've always been able to create self-signed certs, but without a Certificate Authority, those are only useful for "internal" uses, not for public-facing sites. Let's Encrypt is covered in this thread. [
webmasterworld.com...]
If you look into Let's Encrypt, you'll see that it's really still for people with full server access who can install all the necessary stuff, which doesn't describe anyone on shared hosting or using a hosted solution.
Shopify doesn't say how they're offering free certs for your domain with every account. They might just have a special deal with a CA, but this highlights how https is becoming more and more the norm. This is what they sent in their partner email
We’ve issued and set up SSL certificates for all pages, content, and data on every Shopify store, in addition to Shopify checkouts. This will come at no additional cost to your clients, and is easily activated by clicking “Activate SSL certificates” in their Shopify account.... Read the docs [docs.shopify.com...]
I would expect Big Commerce, Squarespace and other big players in the hosted e-commerce space to feel pressured to follow suit soon (unless they already have and I missed it).
