Hi Cayden,

thanks for your input, but I have to ask, in what way does preventing a
browser from connecting to a site not give the visitor a negative
impression of that site? Is it better that the visitor thinks the site is
not available at all?

I think you may be downplaying the number of incompatible browsers in use
today. Ignoring XP, Google's Nexus One got Android 2.2 just 2 years ago, a
common contract period for mobiles.. so how many pre-2.2 Android phones
have been sold since then?

Just to clarify.. your suggested solution, if using SNI to provide a secure
website and wanting to somewhat support non-SNI browsers would be:

- never publicise secure urls
for each connection:
 - detect the browser and decide whether or not the browser supports SNI (a
mostly accurate guess based on a list of browsers in your code)
 - either redirect to the secure url, warn the user and tell them to
install a new browser, or just serve up the unsecured content.

cheers,

J




On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Cayden Meyer <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am the Product Manager on App Engine responsible for SSL.
>
> There seems to be a little bit of confusion about how VIPs can be used. A
> single VIP can be used for a number of applications via the use of a
> wildcard or multi-domain/SAN certificate. Multiple domain (domain.com and
> domain.net) support can be achieved by adding the additional domain as an
> alias of your primary domain and using a multi-domain/SAN certificate.
>
> Regarding the concerns about browser support for SNI, SNI is supported by
> most modern browsers with a few exceptions, notably Internet Explorer and
> Safari on Windows XP as well as Android 2.2 and below. Please note that
> this is not all browsers on Windows XP simply IE and Safari, Chrome and
> Firefox will work on XP without issue.
>
> I would also like to clarify what happens when a user with a browser that
> does not support SNI visits an App Engine application being served over
> SNI. If the page is being served over HTTP there will be no issues. If the
> site is being served over HTTPS the browser will  be unable to connect.
> This is a decision we made to stop users being presented with security
> warnings which may give them a negative impression of the site. We
> recommend warning users who visit your application (over HTTP) using a
> browser that does not support SNI to install a browser which does support
> SNI (such as Chrome or Firefox) .
>
> I hope this addresses some of the questions raised in this thread.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Cayden Meyer
> Product Manager, Google App Engine
>
>
>
> On 19 July 2012 10:07, Jeff Schnitzer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> http://blorn.com/post/20185054195/ssl-for-your-domain-on-google-app-engine
>>
>> It still works and it's still $20/mo.  Yes, it's unencrypted between
>> CF and Google.  Assuming you aren't taking credit cards directly, is
>> that a problem?
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Doug Anderson <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>> > I share your sentiment about the SSL support 100%... it's great to
>> finally
>> > have it but the reality is the ecosystem just isn't ready for SNI yet.
>> > There are still too many browsers that don't support SNI including the
>> > Kindle Fire and every other pre-Ice Cream Sandwich Android device (of
>> which
>> > there are many).   To be honest I expect Google to be a better steward
>> of
>> > the Internet.  Proper SSL support should be encouraged and offered as an
>> > inherent part any professional web development platform.  SSL should
>> NOT be
>> > treated as a major feature upgrade where cost becomes a deciding factor
>> for
>> > adoption.  By favoring SNI Google is compromising the integrity of the
>> > browser experience anytime the overwhelming majority of Android users
>> browse
>> > to a secure App Engine site.
>> >
>> > The non-SNI supporting browsers I've tested generate big ol' certificate
>> > warnings and strongly encourage users NOT to continue browsing to the
>> site.
>> > Users generally have a choice to continue or not but the warnings sound
>> > quite ominous and make it seem like your illegitimate site is
>> pretending to
>> > be someone else's legitimate site ("the certificate this site is using
>> was
>> > issued for another web address").  Unfortunately, adopting SNI right now
>> > just pollutes the browsing experience and makes your site seem shady.
>> With
>> > Internet Explorer if the user clicks through the certificate warning and
>> > continues to you site, the URL input bar stays highlighted with a red
>> > background and an intimidating "certificate error" message is displayed
>> to
>> > the right of the URL.
>> >
>> > I'm all for Google profiting from App Engine but it seems like there are
>> > enough other opportunities for that since they monitor and charge for
>> just
>> > about everything else.  I'm still hoping there's enough "don't be evil"
>> > within Google that they decide to favor a seamless browsing experience
>> over
>> > a pay-for-proper-security profit grab.  Perhaps in another 3-5 years the
>> > ecosystem will be more accommodating of SNI but unfortunately that day
>> isn't
>> > here yet.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:02:20 PM UTC-4, GAEfan wrote:
>> >>
>> >> So happy to see SSL support finally here, but a bit disappointed.  VIP
>> >> seems the way to go, but at $99 per month, it is cost prohibitive for
>> some
>> >> of our apps.  So, I am asking for feedback from others who have
>> implemented
>> >> SNI.  From my understanding, there are still many visitors with older
>> >> browsers who will not be able to use it.  Is that correct?
>> >>
>> >> Looking at recent stats, we have 16% of our visitors with IE 6 or 7.
>>  And
>> >> an astounding 43% with XP or previous versions of Windows.  Not to
>> mention
>> >> those with Safari/Win, or older Android OS.  What will these visitors
>> see
>> >> when they try to access an SNI-SSL page?
>> >>
>> >> Any problems/issues encountered with SNI implementations?  Older
>> browsers?
>> >> International visitors?  Frankly, at $108/year PLUS the certificate,
>> even
>> >> SNI-SSL is expensive.  But $1200/year, plus cert, for VIP is not
>> feasible
>> >> for smaller apps.  (IMO, $108/year should cover virtual IP).  Sticking
>> with
>> >> our appspot URLs for SSL until this is ready for prime time.  We are
>> not
>> >> willing to abandon even a small single-digit percentage of our users.
>> >>
>> >> Also, I recently was told that some search engines use the IP address
>> in
>> >> page ranking.  Shared IPs are penalized.  Had not heard that before,
>> and not
>> >> sure that is accurate, as a majority of sites are on shared-IPs.
>> >>
>> >> Your feedback greatly appreciated.
>> >>
>> >>
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