Free Code Signing Certificate

[ManuTOO]

Hello,

since June 2011, if you register a free account on IntelApp (as developer), you can get a free code signing certificate from Comodo for 1 year. If you renew this year, it's still free, but in future, I guess we may have to pay.
Comodo certificate can be bought from Tucows discounted at $75 / year, and $180 / year on Comodo site.

Anyway, head there for more info : http://appdeveloper.intel.com
Tutorials :
- how to get the certificate : http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/...ying-authority
- how to sign files : http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/...ning-msi-files

A few notes :
- do not use Chrome to order your certificate, it's bugged ! Use Firefox or IE
- obtaining the certificate as an individual is easy enough ; it might be harder for companies (ie: more checking) ; if you're in sole proprietorship, you may not have a commercial name or brand name, so in such case, you'll have to get the certificate in your name (for French people : "nom d'enseigne" isn't a brand/commercial name, so you can't use it)
- if you're not a company, in the Intel Company form just enter your name in the company name field
- if you get your certificate using Firefox, export it using the "Backup" button, in Options -> Advanced -> Encryption -> View Certificates -> Your Certificates ; .p12 file can be used like a .pfx file by SignTool.exe
- if you already installed Visual Studio, you already have installed the Microsoft Platform SDK, so you don't need to try to install the latest one which seems to fail when the latest Visual Studio is already installed... >_<
- once the certificate expires (after 1 year), the signed files are seen as unsigned, so it's required to renew the certificate (we wouldn't want to not pay anymore to get the protection from our Godfather, would we..? )
- I'll do stats of Windows sales vs OSX sales in the incoming weeks, to get a hint if this signing helps my sales or not, and I'll publish my report in this thread

[KSoftware]

I re-sell for Comodo too and will beat both the Intel and Tucows deals for anyone here in addition to personally walking anyone through the certificate ordering and signing process on any platform. The verification process can be a little bit confusing but I'm available almost any time via phone and email to answer any questions (or PM me here).

Use the coupon code CPNINDIEGAME on my order page at http://codesigning.ksoftware.net for a 25% discount -- and that applies to all of the products, from 1 to 5 years. Use that discount on a 5 year cert and the per-year price is just under $55 per year, or essentially 2 free years. The single-year price drops to $71.25.

Just one technical clarification in your original post though -- you mentioned that when the certificate expires that the signatures expire and that's not strictly true. If you use a timestamp with Comodo certs then the signatures remain valid even after the certificate itself expires. My free code signing utility kSign does timestamping automatically if you're signing on Windows but I can walk anyone through doing it on other platforms as well.

[ManuTOO]

Stats...

My OSX sales have dropped a lot in the past 2 months, so it's hard to do any stats.
My Windows sales raised a bit in the past 2 months after 3 months of declines, but it's likely due to my 1st game reaching a new market, because my 2nd game sales decline is stable.
So all in all, maybe the code signing helped a bit, but it's not possible to conclude.