How can I get that huge security icon on my secure site?

Question

If I go to www.paypal.com, Firefox displays a huge icon in the location bar. Is it possible to get my web site to do this without paying $2700 to Verisign? Where is the best place to buy SSL certificates and not break the bank?

Answer 1

I have had great luck with GeoTrust. No options that I know of are what I would call "cheap", but you can do better than Verisign pricing and GeoTrust is one place where that is true.

Answer 2

What you are talking about is a EV Cert. The EV stands for Extended Validation. Basically the larger price pays for someone to really look into you business and verify that you are who you say you are. I have used Verisign for my sites.

Here is a list of Certificates that are included in Firefox.

These are typically very pricey and for good reason.

Answer 3

You're talking about EV (extended validation) SSL. Digicert are very competitive for this ($488 per year) and also standard SSL certificates. Whoever you go for though, make sure you check what browser compatibility they have as some of the cheaper ones do not have as wide support as the more expensive ones meaning you're kinda getting what you pay for.

Edit: also, EV is only supported on the more recent browsers (not IE6 for example).

Answer 4

The icon you see is from an Extended Validation Certificate (EV Certificate). They are notoriously higher-priced, though Verisign is not the only certificate authority that sells them. You can find them for around the $500 mark as well. Microsoft maintains a list of CAs that work with IE7. I selected two or three at random and found one that would sell me an EV Cert for just under $500.

Answer 5

To get the green bar, your CA needs to pass an audit. Be sure that you're buying an Extended Validation cert, and using https.