Alternatives to Outrageous SSL Certificate Prices

Having a web site that supports secure connections (HTTPS) using SSL requires that your web site has a special security certificate. The obvious way to get an official one of these (ignoring the self-signing option) is to go through a company like Thawte or use Comodo's InstantSSL product. That will set you back about USD$99 per year, per certificate! But there are more reasonable options.

Comodo and such do a few background checks on your company, just to make sure that the address of your company on your domain registration matches the address on your certificate signing request (CSR). But I don't need anybody to vouch for my company. I just need to securely access my company's open-source Java code via Subversion, and let others securely access it without any complaints from the browser and client software.

So today I stumbled across register.com, which I thought only did domain registration. It turns out they issue SSL certificates as well, and for only about a quarter of the cost (even cheaper if you find the right link through Google). Their certificates seem to work just as well as those from Comodo, except that the certificates don't seem to indicate my organization. I don't care—who is going to look at that information, anyway? I just need a basic link in the security chain, and register.com's prices are a breath of fresh air after being virtually fleeced by Comodo.