&gt; Let&#x27;s Encrypt is essentially shareware. The basic features are available for free, but if you want something better than that, such as wildcard certificates, you must pay up.<p>First off, it&#x27;s free software and it&#x27;s an open community. LetsEncrypt is trying to get wildcard certificates, but just because they haven&#x27;t yet convinced CAs to allow them to have wildcard certificates doesn&#x27;t make it anywhere close to shareware bullshit.<p>&gt; Not to mention that it&#x27;s cross-signed with IdenTrust, a commercial CA, and since everyone on the web has to use this service to get HTTPS (there aren&#x27;t other decent alternatives), this is a good way for IdenTrust to boost its numbers and be able to claim it&#x27;s &quot;the biggest CA in the world&quot; or something. There&#x27;s no way to choose a different CA with Let&#x27;s Encrypt.<p>This is FUD. Why do you care about IdenTrust beating their chest? Why do you want to use another backing CA? What possible benefit does that provide? The whole CA thing is fucked anyway (in terms of the massive centralisation), so changing the backing CA won&#x27;t do much.<p>Also, to be fair, they did pull the trigger on LE, so it&#x27;s not fair to get all pissy when they take credit for their decision.