site certificate just expired
https://digdeeper.club/articles/static.xhtml#ssl
You do not need to rely on a certificate authority to support encrypted connections - you can generate the cert yourself. This has some advantages in that you don't have to rely on a third party that can go down at any time, or just be hacked and compromised by "cybercriminals". You can have stronger encryption than the maximum offered by acme / Let's Encrypt (8192 vs 4096). You can have your cert be valid for whatever length of time you want to, instead of the puny month or 3 months or whatever of LE; you will never be canceled, either. And finally you can fill the data with funny stuff like this:
self_signed_cert.png
Showing the 'View certificate' window in Pale Moon for my diggy.club self-signed cert, with 'Dig Deeper Team' listed as the issuing organization
Compare to a Let's Encrypt-assigned one:
lets_encrypt_cert.png
Showing the 'View certificate' window in Pale Moon for my digdeeper.club Let's Encrypt cert. The lack of fun stuff in the data is very obvious.
So what's the catch? Because there has to be one, right? There indeed is, and a very serious one. Namely that all mainstream browsers display a big scary warning when they encounter a self-signed cert. Like this:
cert_warning.png
Self-signed cert warning in Chrome-based browsers, claiming the connection is 'not private' and offering a way to 'get back to safety' by leaving the offending page
You can click Advanced and proceed to my site anyway, but every normie will retreat to his "safe" Google-shaped cage instead. So if you want any actual viewership, you can't rely on this at least unless you have another host with an "official" cert.