Free Trial for Code Signing Certificates: Myth or Fact?

If you are a code publisher or software developer, your end-users need to trust your software that they download. You, a legit entity, must win their trust and confidence as the source of the file rather than any third party or any infiltrator claiming to be you. Also, they need to know that the code has not been tampered with by any hacker or has any malware inserted in it.

Having a Code Signing Certificate helps the users know that you are the rightful owner of the software code and have not been compromised.

So, a Certificate Authority-issued code signing certificate is digital proof that comes with an entity’s details justifying its authenticity. The certificate attests the entity’s identity to a public key, mathematically related to a private key.

If you are a code publisher or software publishing organization, you probably have an idea about getting free SSL certificates. Having known this, you would be right to wonder whether code signing certificates are offered for free. After all, code signing certificates are another form of X.509 certificate.

Who doesn’t love getting free stuff? We can’t tell for sure about other things, but one thing that everybody loves is getting things free. Whether it is free food, free trips, or anything like security certificates, it is one thing no one would ever deny. Of course, people would love making full use of it.

Naturally, you would question getting a free trial of a code signing certificate. Had you asked it before 2016, the answer would have been a solid YES, as the certificates were available for free for open-source projects.

A particular Certificate Authority then offered free code signing certificates for open-source projects as a trial version with a one-year validity time. However, in 2016, it was stopped from continuing for free. So, let us now answer your question:

Is there a Free Trial for a Code Signing Certificate?

Unfortunately, NO. By necessity, there can’t be a free trial of the code signing certificate as each order has to undergo a rigorous vetting process, where the identity of the code publisher or software company order is verified.

Suppose you are wondering why the CA that offered free code signing certificates discontinued it or why no CAs provide a free trial or free code signing certificate. In that case, one of the primary reasons is the compliance limitations and how expensive it is to follow those guidelines.

Some of the Reasons are:

The code signing vetting process demands verification of particular documents. It can be government-issued ID proof, like a passport, driving license, and any financial and non-financial document with the code publisher’s full name.
The verification process takes up to five days to complete and requires large operational and staff expenses.
Windows or any other device only trusts those certificates issued by CAs that adhere to the strict rules for validation, logging, audits, and other requirements.

Due to these reasons, no CA would ever offer a free code signing certificate –just like there are no free EV & OV SSL Certificates. So, a certificate that provides free code signing certificates is not possible. So, even if you know any CA claiming to offer one for free, it is impossible, and you are probably being scammed.

You can actually get a code signing certificate that offers a 100% money-back guarantee. So, if you don’t want or change your mind or don’t want the certificate anymore, you have to ask, and you will get your money back. So, where can you find such companies? Let us answer that.

Price charts for Code Signing Certificate:

Buy Certificates	Price
OV Code Signing Certificate	$215.99/yr
EV Code Signing Certificate	$279.99/yr
Individual Code Signing Certificate	$215.99/yr

You must be wondering why you should get a Code Signing Certificate From Third-Party Certificate Authorities.

Below, we have listed some of the reasons:

Maximum distribution of your software and application
Minimum warning messages
Safeguards the integrity of the application and software code
Offers a secure experience to your end-users
Exhibits compatibility across different platforms like Windows, Java, Adobe, Mozilla Firefox

Concluding Words

You might already know that Code signing certificates are only issued by trusted CAs like Sectigo and Comodo as the CAs take applicants for code signing certificates via a strict vetting process for verifying the legitimacy of the code publisher, taking around 1 to 5 days for completion and issuing the certificate.

If we spill the truth, the verification processes are not free and are associated with big costs. This is because the certificate authorities hire people and train them to handle exhausting tasks, logs, documentation, etc.

Thus, code-signing certificates cannot be made available for free. Moreover, offering them for free keeps all the malware away. A good example can be the widespread use of free SSL certificates for malicious websites for scamming people.

Similarly, if a code signing is made free, hackers and cybercriminals misuse it for malicious purposes. So stay alert and never fall into the trap of a FREE CODE SIGNING CERTIFICATE!