The number of website domains using a tls certificate from Let’s Encrypt has risen to 152 million. The organization behind Let’s Encrypt expects a further increase for this year, to 215 million websites.
Almost 88 million Let’s Encrypt tls certificates for the 152 million sites are active, according to statistics from the Internet Security Research Group, or ISRG, the legal entity behind the Let’s Encrypt initiative. The organization expects that by 2019 the numbers will rise to 120 million active TLS certificates for 215 million websites.
The ISRG also thanks everyone who is involved in the development of the more than 85 software clients for the Let’s Encrypt acme protocol. Furthermore, the organization hopes that Nginx will receive built-in acme support this year, as Apache already has. With acme, users can obtain certificates for their sites.
The first Let’s Encrypt TLS certificate was issued in 2015. The goal is to make each site accessible via https with free provision and simple implementation.
Behind the Let’s Encrypt initiative are the EFF, Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai, IdenTrust and researchers from the University of Michigan.
ISRG points out that according to Mozilla, 77 percent of the page loads were encrypted, an increase compared to 67 percent of the previous year.
