When to use SSL?

[Magical]

Greetings,

Best practice question - when is it necessary to use SSL? If I have a one page site with a contact form should I secure that page with SSL? Or is that overkill? I agree that an ecommerce site should be secure with SSL.

Do you guys use SSL for everything?

[[RZ]]

you do not always need ssl even if you have an ecommerce website; of course, in the case you delegate the payment process to an external processor like PayPal (because they manage all the stuff)
if you store sensitive (or financial) information about your customers (like a bank does) you should have ssl...
it depends mainly on which information you handle and how (via an own processor or an external one)
my cent here

[rogerl]

There is also a move underway by browsers and search engines to increase the level of warnings against sites that are not ssl protected. That's why I decided to move early. It's just another annoying thing you don't need when people are looking or trying to get to your site. The other thing is search around for best price there is a lot of overcharging for this service.

[Magical]

you do not always need ssl even if you have an ecommerce website; of course, in the case you delegate the payment process to an external processor like PayPal (because they manage all the stuff)
if you store sensitive (or financial) information about your customers (like a bank does) you should have ssl...
it depends mainly on which information you handle and how (via an own processor or an external one)
my cent here

Its just an alumni site, no NPPI (non-public private info) will be there, just names and email addresses will be collected via a form for registration. No credit cards or any other address information.

[Magical]

There is also a move underway by browsers and search engines to increase the level of warnings against sites that are not ssl protected. That's why I decided to move early. It's just another annoying thing you don't need when people are looking or trying to get to your site. The other thing is search around for best price there is a lot of overcharging for this service.

I looked around and some of theses certs run over $100 per year. And yes I did see that browsers have started to warn people of un-secure sites. I think google wants everyone to be on SSL.

[Maria Flores]

There is also a move underway by browsers and search engines to increase the level of warnings against sites that are not ssl protected. That's why I decided to move early. It's just another annoying thing you don't need when people are looking or trying to get to your site. The other thing is search around for best price there is a lot of overcharging for this service.

I looked around and some of theses certs run over $100 per year. And yes I did see that browsers have started to warn people of un-secure sites. I think google wants everyone to be on SSL.

There's a free and easy way to implement SSL on any site by going to https://www.sslforfree.com/ (SSL from Let's Encrypt)

[Magical]

Cool! Thanks will try it.

[Maria Flores]

Cool! Thanks will try it.

You're welcome.