Comment by mardifoufs
6 hours ago
American IT Mafia? That provides free certificates? You'd think setting up renewal would be less of a hassle than dealing and paying CAs even if it's once every 3 years, so that would be a rather benevolent mafia. Which of those CAs went out of business by the way?
Do you think Let's encrypt is less popular outside the US?
StartSSL, WoSign were the ones I've used. Very convenient services, much more convenient, compared to this certbot insanity.
I think that the rest of the world does not have much choice, because US uses their IT superiority to force political decisions to the rest of the world. I experienced that first-hand. When my country wanted to implement MITM to improve Internet usability for their citizens, US companies blacklisted government root certificate which disrupted this scheme and forced my country to roll back this plan. Now I have lots of websites completely blocked, instead of more careful and precise per-page blocking that would only be possible with MITM.
Hopefully, over time, China and Russia will destroy this superiority and will provide viable alternatives.
I had to deal with StartCom once many years ago, before LetsEncrypt. They had the rudest customer service I think I've ever encountered.