SSL For Free? Yes, Free SSL for Subdomains Is Available-
Yes, free SSL is available for domains and subdomains. ZeroSSL helps both domain and subdomain to install free SSL.
When do you require SSL?
If you see the “Not Secure” warning instead of the lock icon alongside your domain name in the URL, it means SSL is absent. And this is when you require SSL.
Typically, well-known hosting companies such as Hostinger, Siteground, A2 hosting, and others provide a free SSL certificate.
However, free hosting companies do not always do so.
Because many beginners utilise free hosting to support their blogs, the lack of SSL can severely impact their blog’s SEO.
Is there a free hosting company that offers free SSL?
InfinityFree is a free hosting and domain service that works with several free SSL providers, including Let’s Encrypt, GoGetSSL, Cloudfare, and ZeroSSL.
Let’s Encrypt is one of the few SSL services that exclusively supports custom domains. Custom domains are those that you have purchased on your own.
Second, Cloudfare is only accessible for domains (free or paid), not subdomains.
The remaining two SSL providers, ZeroSSL and GoGetSSL, are the only two that can provide free SSL for both domain and subdomain.
Before we understand how to install free SSL, let’s first grasp what HTTP is, what SSL is, and how it works.
What is HTTP?
All information on the Internet is transmitted from one point to another via a language called HTTP(Hyper Text Transfer Protocol).
However, HTTP is unsecured and vulnerable to hackers with evil intent.
So SSL (Secure Socket Layer) was developed to offer a secure environment for HTTP.
What is SSL? How does it work?
Secure Socket Layer protects data by encrypting it as it is transmitted.
Without encryption, information is easily accessible and, as a result, easily stolen.
When you see HTTPS next to your domain name in a URL, it implies that it is a combination of HTTP and SSL.
It also helps in data decryption only by the intended recipient and not by hackers.
Now let’s learn how to install free SSL for your subdomain using ZeroSSL.
Why ZeroSSL?
Manually installed free SSL often expires in 90 days or less.
As a result, you must constantly monitor its status to avoid any concerns.
The procedure of reinstalling a certificate with ZeroSSL is much simpler. Therefore, I picked ZeroSSL over GoGetSSL.
Steps To Install ZeroSSL In Your URL
- Once you have registered your account and created your website go back to InfinityFree’s dashboard. On the top menu of InfinityFree’s dashboard, you can see the column for “Free SSL certificate”.
- Click on “Free SSL Certificate”. It will lead you to a separate tab where you need to enter your domain name.
- After entering the domain name, click the “Add SSL Domain” button.
- At this point, they will present you with four options: Let’s Encrypt, ZeroSSL, GoGetSSL, and Cloudflare. Let’s Encrypt and Cloudflare, both invalid in this case since I have applied SSL for a subdomain.
- After you click on Zero SSL, you will be sent to a new page, where it will ask you to configure the CNAME Records using the Control Panel.
- To do so, go to the “Account” column on the top bar, next to the Free SSL certificate.
- Click the “Manage” button for the domain for which you want an SSL certificate.
- From here, select “Control Panel” to access your control panel.
- Scroll down to the “Advanced” section and choose CNAME Records.
- Within CNAME, there are three columns: Record name, Domain, and Destination. To properly enrol the domain in CNAME, we must use the specified record name and destination code.
- To grab the record name and destination code, navigate to the Free SSL certificate page where the necessary information is present.
- After successfully entering the data, click the “Add” button. You can see your domain for the CNAME record is successful.
- Return to the Free SSL Certificate page now. If the Current Destination shows “ready,” it means we can continue with the process.
- Insert a request for an SSL certificate.
- It will prompt to show this message “Your certificate has been requested and will be generated shortly.”
- Your certificate will be available within a few minutes, and you will be able to see the private key and the certificate key. Now, we have to install this certificate for your domain name.
- Return to the CPanel/Vista panel for that. Scroll to the “Security” section and select “SSL/TLS”.
- Click on the “Configure” button for your domain.
- This will send you to a page where you must enter the private and certificate key. The keys are present on the Free SSL Certificate page.
- Go back and forth to copy the keys and paste on their respective position and then hit the “Upload” button to upload the key. Remember to paste and upload the key one after the other. Don’t try to do everything at once. Paste the private key, upload it, and then paste the certificate key and upload it.
- Wait a few minutes before checking your URL with HTTPS. For example, “https://blogstutorial.lovetoblogs.com”.
You should see a secure lock alongside your URL, indicating the process of installing your SSL certificate was successful.
BUT WAIT, it’s not done yet. You have to make few changes to your WordPress account.
It is because you can see the “Not Secure” mark on your WordPress Account URL rather than “Secure”.
Settings for WordPress Account
- Open your WordPress account. Navigate to Settings -> General.
You must update the WordPress URL and the Site address URL from HTTP to HTTPS in this section. Click the “Save Changes” button.
- At this point, you will see that you will get logged out of your WordPress account.
You can return to your account by entering your username and password.
After you log in, you will notice that your URL has changed from “Not Secure” to “Secure,” which is HTTPS.
What’s Next?
Let’s change the WordPress link in Softaculous so that you can get directed to Your WordPress account from there as well.
Change WordPress URL Link In Softaculous
- To modify the Softaculous URL. Navigate to Blogs -> WordPress.
- Scroll down and click on “edit details” for your WordPress account.
- Change the URL for the WordPress account from HTTP to HTTPS.
- Save Installation Details.
You can see, you have edited the WordPress URL to HTTPS, which will lead you directly to your WordPress dashboard all the time.
Conclusion
You may be wondering why I chose this method in particular to install ZeroSSL.
Well, I could have installed the SSL certificate straight from the ZeroSSL Dashboard.
However, InfinityFree hosting does not provide a full CPanel/VistaPanel for the free version.
The File Manager lacks any website-related files or folders, such as the public_html folder.
As a result, in this case, this was the ideal approach to install the SSL Certificate.
I hope this post was useful to you. Please share your opinions in the comments section below.