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Almost 1 in 5 people on the web are still running Windows XP. No version of Internet Explorer on XP supports SNI. Neither does Safari on XP, the browser in Andr

Almost 1 in 5 people on the web are still running Windows XP. No version of Internet Explorer on XP supports SNI. Neither does Safari on XP, the browser in Android 2.x, the BlackBerry browser or Opera Mobile before 10.1. It may be a minority of users, but it's not just "people who are still running IE6". Pretty much everyone would love to use SNI; site owners wouldn't have to pay for extra IPs, hosting companies wouldn't have to worry about securing and allocating them just for SSL use, tons of IPv4 space could be put back into circulation, and CAs would be able to sell many more certs. Unfortunately the group that can't use it is too large to ignore, so none of that's happening.

handsomeransoms 13y ago
I appreciate your detailed response! I should not have been so dismissive of those users. Still, I maintain that the "extra cost for a dedicated IP" is a poor excuse for not implementing SSL.
- agwa 13y ago
  Unfortunately. it's not always just the cost - too many providers (e.g. DigitalOcean) obnoxiously don't support multiple IP addresses on a server/VM.
  - jbrechtel 13y ago
    Why's this a problem related to SSL?
    - chrismorgan 13y ago
      Without SNI, SSL works on an IP address level rather than a hostname level, just like HTTP/1.0 worked at the IP address level and HTTP/1.1 works at the hostname level with the Host header. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication for more info.
      - jbrechtel 13y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't clear. I understand SNI and SSL without SNI. What I'm not seeing is why it's a problem when a host such as DO doesn't allow multiple IP addresses on a single machine. Is it because you may want to host multiple sites on that machine and use one IP address for SSL? Oh, nevermind. It's because you may want to support multiple SSL sites on the same box without requiring your clients support SNI. That makes sense. We really need to just EOL everyone who has a browser without SNI. People like to say that there's still a lot of XP users out there but surely even a reasonable chunk of them are using Chrome or Firefox with SNI support, right?
  - cmircea 13y ago
    DigitalOcean is small... Windows Azure does not support multiple IPs except for hosted websites. Cloud Services or Virtual Machines get only one IP. And dedicated IPs for websites are extremely expensive.
    - agwa 13y ago
      Further proving my point... Joyent is another example of a cloud provider which only gives you one IP address. It doesn't need to be this way - Linode gives extra addresses for $1/month each (provided valid technical justification, such as the need to run HTTPS).
    - bigiain 13y ago
      In digital oceans defense, the right answer if you need an additional ip for an Ssl secured website is to pay $5/month for it and get a free 512m/20G droplet for it. If the price difference between Linode's $1/month extra ip address and DO's $5/month extra vps is a sticking point - you're not indicating that you care very much about privacy/security. (There may well be other reasons spinning up additional vpses for each SSL secured site doesn't suit you, but a few dollars a month price difference is surely only being used as an excuse for inaction rather that a show-stopping financial burden - at least for anyone in the top 99% of HN's demographic…)
micro-ram 13y ago
Yes, XP does not support SNI. Users will be presented with a certificate error however the correct site will be served. It will just have the wrong cert. If this is not a deal breaker for the small percentage of XP traffic expected you should use SNI anyway. Maybe a javascript check to point out to the user why the wrong cert was displayed would nudge them to upgrade.
elchief 13y ago
But they're all in China, so if that isn't your market, then don't worry about it.
- scott_karana 13y ago
  If you're in the Mobile space, cutting out Android 2.x is unacceptable: 33.1%! (Source: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html)

handsomeransoms 13y ago

I appreciate your detailed response! I should not have been so dismissive of those users. Still, I maintain that the "extra cost for a dedicated IP" is a poor excuse for not implementing SSL.

agwa 13y ago
Unfortunately. it's not always just the cost - too many providers (e.g. DigitalOcean) obnoxiously don't support multiple IP addresses on a server/VM.
- jbrechtel 13y ago
  Why's this a problem related to SSL?
  - chrismorgan 13y ago
    Without SNI, SSL works on an IP address level rather than a hostname level, just like HTTP/1.0 worked at the IP address level and HTTP/1.1 works at the hostname level with the Host header. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication for more info.
    - jbrechtel 13y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't clear. I understand SNI and SSL without SNI. What I'm not seeing is why it's a problem when a host such as DO doesn't allow multiple IP addresses on a single machine. Is it because you may want to host multiple sites on that machine and use one IP address for SSL? Oh, nevermind. It's because you may want to support multiple SSL sites on the same box without requiring your clients support SNI. That makes sense. We really need to just EOL everyone who has a browser without SNI. People like to say that there's still a lot of XP users out there but surely even a reasonable chunk of them are using Chrome or Firefox with SNI support, right?
- cmircea 13y ago
  DigitalOcean is small... Windows Azure does not support multiple IPs except for hosted websites. Cloud Services or Virtual Machines get only one IP. And dedicated IPs for websites are extremely expensive.
  - agwa 13y ago
    Further proving my point... Joyent is another example of a cloud provider which only gives you one IP address. It doesn't need to be this way - Linode gives extra addresses for $1/month each (provided valid technical justification, such as the need to run HTTPS).
  - bigiain 13y ago
    In digital oceans defense, the right answer if you need an additional ip for an Ssl secured website is to pay $5/month for it and get a free 512m/20G droplet for it. If the price difference between Linode's $1/month extra ip address and DO's $5/month extra vps is a sticking point - you're not indicating that you care very much about privacy/security. (There may well be other reasons spinning up additional vpses for each SSL secured site doesn't suit you, but a few dollars a month price difference is surely only being used as an excuse for inaction rather that a show-stopping financial burden - at least for anyone in the top 99% of HN's demographic…)

micro-ram 13y ago

Yes, XP does not support SNI. Users will be presented with a certificate error however the correct site will be served. It will just have the wrong cert. If this is not a deal breaker for the small percentage of XP traffic expected you should use SNI anyway. Maybe a javascript check to point out to the user why the wrong cert was displayed would nudge them to upgrade.

elchief 13y ago

But they're all in China, so if that isn't your market, then don't worry about it.

scott_karana 13y ago
If you're in the Mobile space, cutting out Android 2.x is unacceptable: 33.1%! (Source: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html)