Let’s Encrypt issues digital certificates you can use to enable HTTPS (SSL/TLS) on your website for free.

I know, it sounds too good to be true, but Let’s Encrypt really does provide 100% free certificates with no downside. They’re a non-profit established for the public good and are supported by a combination of donations and corporate sponsors comprising some of the most important companies on the web, including Mozilla, Google, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cisco, and many others.

The certificates Let’s Encrypt provides are just as secure as any other SSL/TLS certificate, even the ones that cost money. These certificates can be used to secure traffic to and from your site for a variety of purposes, from e-commerce to simply giving your visitors peace of mind. I use Let’s Encrypt here at Core Assistance, as well as on other projects, and they’ve worked wonderfully.

Many web hosts have support for Let’s Encrypt built right in. Enabling HTTPS on your website might be as easy as flipping a switch in your web host’s control panel.

If your web host doesn’t support Let’s Encrypt, ask them to!

When the web was new, no website was secure. The desire to sell things online drove the creation and adoption of secure connections to websites. These days some sites are secure and some aren’t, but we’re heading for a future where every website is secure. More and more services and systems require a secure connection, secure websites rank higher in search results, and new features are being designed and built for HTTPS only. One example is Mozilla requiring secure contexts for new features, which means that advances in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will only work in Firefox if the connection to the website using them is secure.

With Let’s Encrypt providing completely free certificates, there’s no good reason your website should be insecure.