I have lost count of how many hours, days and even weeks I’ve wasted because of un-trusted self-signed/generated certificates in my time as a developer. Some util always trips up, makes me add a flag and then still fails. Trying to install custom root certificates works for some software, not all. It’s a complete mess and I long for the day it will be over.
Now, there is a solution: Let’s encrypt. Just get trusted certificates everywhere. Free, quick and easy. This will not give you all the levels of verification and trust that you can get from an SSL certificate; but it gives you an encrypted connection to every server out there. It’s way better than just HTTP, and it’s quick and easy.
Still beta, but took me about 10 minutes to set it up for this blog. Run, answer a question, check something and answer another. Bam! Encrypted! 🙂