Title: Without using SSL
Last modified: March 25, 2017

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# Without using SSL

 *  [eyeghoti](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eyeghoti/)
 * (@eyeghoti)
 * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/)
 * I’m setting up a site for a small club (less than 40 members) where most of the
   site requires a login, using the Simple WordPress Membership plugin.
    I think
   it is this plugin that is throwing up SSL issues _some of the time_. (I’ve only
   had Firefox complain about not having an SSL certificate once, and the club’s
   president has also. But no one else is set up with access yet. Other browsers
   and onther devices haven’t been a problem for me, though I’ve not been systematic
   about testing.)
 * The most significant personal data behind the login is likely to be members photos,
   names and possibly email and/or phone numbers though nothing is definite yet.
   
   There is unlikely to be any monetorisation of the website.
 * The host is 123Reg, and as far as I can see, their SSL price will roughly double
   the cost of the hosting. Having persuaded the club to invest in a self hosted
   website (and stop using their old wordpress.com site) it won’t be easy to persuade
   them they need to add another regual payment for an SSL certificate.
 * How necessary is an SSL certificatein the circumstances?
    Is there a way to stop
   browsers using https? (Or have I completely misunderstood how it all works?)

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/)
 * (@sterndata)
 * Volunteer Forum Moderator
 * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/#post-8956694)
 * Browsers (Chrome and Firefox) are going to start complaining about pages that
   request passwords when those pages are not SSL encrypted. It’s not something 
   you can control. So you can either tell your members to ignore it or get an SSL
   certificate.
 * Certificates from LetsEncrypt are free — check with your host to see if they 
   support that. If not, you might consider changing to a host that does.
 * [https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/web-hosting-who-support-lets-encrypt/6920](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/web-hosting-who-support-lets-encrypt/6920)
 * (Note: Let’s not turn this into a discussion of hosting.)
 *  Thread Starter [eyeghoti](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eyeghoti/)
 * (@eyeghoti)
 * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/#post-8957152)
 * I’d already looked at the list on Lets Encrypt, but unfortunately the host isn’t
   listed.
    I’ll look into switching hosts come renewal time.
 *  [Eddy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/edznet/)
 * (@edznet)
 * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/#post-8957802)
 * Hi [@eyeghoti](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eyeghoti/)
 * An alternative to moving hosting providers or purchasing and SSL Certificate 
   would be to use [CloudFlare](https://www.cloudflare.com/) and take advantage 
   of their features including SSL on their free plan.
 * Regards
 *  Thread Starter [eyeghoti](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eyeghoti/)
 * (@eyeghoti)
 * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/#post-8958258)
 * Thanks for the suggestion Eddy.
    Unfortunately, despite having read several of
   their web pages and watched a couple of their videos, I still haven’t a clue 
   what CloudFlare actually is. Is it a plugin? Or a service through which your 
   all your web traffic is diverted? And how does it work?
 *  [Eddy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/edznet/)
 * (@edznet)
 * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/#post-8960568)
 * Hi [@eyeghoti](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eyeghoti/)
 * CloudFlare accelerates and secures your website by acting as a proxy between 
   your visitors and your Web Host.
 * CLoudFlare provides name servers that you will need to set as your authoritative
   name servers for your domain. This allows CloudFlare to clean and accelerate 
   your traffic as all requests to your website are now routed through CloudFlare.
 * You can then manage all your DNS records through CloudFlare. When creating an
   account with CloudFlare they will scan your current DNS records and copy them
   to their side so that you wont need to manually configure them again.
 * The hardest part if I can say, is that you will need access to modify the domains
   authoritative name servers with your current Domain Registrar. Once the name 
   server updates have been made and applied CloudFlare will start delivering your
   website content through their Content Delivery Network.
 * —
 * Here is a link to there official getting stated guide, it explains everything
   in more details:
 * [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/categories/200275218-Getting-Started](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/categories/200275218-Getting-Started)

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Without using SSL’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Everything else WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/miscellaneous/)
 * 6 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [Eddy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/edznet/)
 * Last activity: [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/without-using-ssl/#post-8960568)
 * Status: not resolved

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