Jul 28 2017

DV vs OV: If users can’t tell the difference, is there one?

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DV only certifies encryption. OV certs verify the Organization’s name and location. However, they  have the same security indicator across all browsers. So how do users know if the website they’re at has had this information checked out?

Really, they can’t and most probably wont.

For users, the process for checking certificate details has become seriously hard as of March (2017) for Chrome users. The new interface is being tested, so we can’t comment on this now… but having the same indicator for two (very) different certificates is confusing and ultimately diminishes the OV’s value.