Microsoft Adds Support for StartCom Certificates

Many have waited in anticipation for this moment and it has finally arrived. Startcom's root certificate is now trusted by Microsoft! SSL Shopper has updated its site to acknowledge this fact and included StartCom's certificate in the comparison now that they are a much more viable option for commercial sites. This is especially significant for those wanting domain-validated, free SSL certificates. StartCom released the following press release announcing the details:

Eilat, Israel, September 24, 2009 - StartCom is proud to announce that digital certificates issued by the StartCom Certification Authority are now fully trusted and legitimate in Microsoft applications such as Internet Explorer and Office/Outlook. Microsoft recently enabled this support by adding StartCom to its Root Certificate Program in an updated list of trusted root certificates distributed worldwide to users of Microsoft applications. Microsoft has also enabled the new Extended Validation certificates issued by StartCom, which provide a unique indicator in modern browsers like Internet Explorer 7 and 8.

- The StartCom Certification Authority has gained significant mindshare with technically-oriented members of the Internet community through its high security standards, grassroots ambiance, and competitive offerings. StartCom has been a true pioneer by providing automated, legitimate website certificates to its audience without charge, for the first time in the history of standard X.509 digital certificates. By doing so, it has introducued a wide, new audience to digital certificates and web site security. Started initially as an educational project and partly as a commercial effort, the certification authority run by StartCom is today actively shaping a more secure Internet experience for thousands of users and their relying parties through its low-cost, high-availability services. With the goal to educate the masses about the need for proper identification, certification and authentication, StartCom promotes higher reliability on the Internet and allows the mitigation of losses and other risks.

- In 2008, StartCom proved its adherence to the highest industry management and security standards through certification in WebTrust for CAs and WebTrust Extended Validation as a result of audit procedures performed by Ernst & Young. This in turn allowed Microsoft and other software vendors to enable the highest trust settings for StartCom in their respective software. Even before gaining WebTrust certification, StartCom-issued certificates were already recognized by a wide variety of software vendors, including Mozilla (Firefox) and Apple (Mac OS X). With the recently added support by Microsoft, digital certificates issued by StartCom are today recognized by the vast majority of modern browsers and Internet applications. StartCom is now able to provide a viable, low-cost alternative to existing commercial certification authorities and providers.

To reach these goals, StartCom has developed and applied a unique business model previously not found in the digital certification industry. Whereas the competition applies fees on a per-certificate basis, StartCom charges based on the effort needed to issue a particular type or class of certificates (free for simple Class 1 certificates and extremely reasonable fees for higher-trust Class 2 and Extended Validation certificates). This makes StartCom highly competitive, since its subscribers receive a better product for a lower fee or no fee at all. The services and products of StartCom are provided 24 hours a day through a secure, web-based, online control panel. This system gives StartCom almost instant interaction with its customers and enables very efficient handling and delivery of its services, further enhancing the user experience.

StartCom is committed to building a more reliable, secure Internet. As part of that commitment, StartCom is actively involved with key security-related projects (such as the CA/Browser Forum, the Mozilla project, and OpenID), cooperates with a wide variety of software vendors and standardization working groups, helps to educate end users and service operators, and constantly works to improve its own offerings to enable the delivery of accessible, affordable digitial certificates.

Users of Microsoft Windows systems may visit the Update Site to install the Root Update Package. It is also possible to invoke an automatic root update of the StartCom root by visiting a StartCom SSL protected site such as https://www.startcom.org/ that chains up to the StartCom root certificate.

Originally posted on Sun Sep 27, 2009