SSL TLS part 1 - self-signed

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Installing a self-signed (gasp!) SSL certificate on my VPS was extremely simple, free, and took less than 5 minutes.

Once again, DigitalOcean was the top result on my search for adding a self-signed SSL certificate to my VPS to enable a secure connection. Their guide, How To Create an SSL Certificate on Nginx for Ubuntu 14.04, is well-written and very, very simple. The resulting connection scores a whopping "T" on SSL Labs.

If this site actually had logins or any sort of user information, the next step would be buying a proper certificate from namecheap. For now, though, self-signed SSL for those who don't mind the untrusted certificate and HTTP for everyone else will do.