If you pay for expensive software from organisations like Microsoft, it will come with a digital signature which tells you it is really from that organisation. It doesn’t guarantee that it will be bug free or do everything you hope, but they are putting their reputation on the line so it should have had some testing and it should do what they claim.
If you get cheap or free software you could expect less but a lot of small developers also deliver good quality products and are happy to stand by their software. Unfortunately it is harder for the little guys to do so because a digital signature comes with a price tag and it is an ongoing price tag. If you want your software to be acceptable you have to pay to be acceptable. One of the more interesting aspects is that, so long as you pay your money, you could write viruses or really bad programs and you would come up “squeaky clean” – a trusted publisher. It isn’t that bad in practice because they do at least check you are who you say you are and if you ruin your own reputation then people will learn not to download your software. So, there is something for the money. But it is still an impost on the little guys whose hearts are in the right place.
If you install software from an untrusted publisher you will see something like this:
I know most of you are used to this and know you just downloaded the file from the real website so most of you just click [Yes] and install. That’s all very sensible and fine.
However, if you’d like a more polite message for future programs, you can install a GssEziSoft software certificate which is just like the expensive ones.
I have started signing my software and the intent is that (eventually) everything from here will be signed using one certificate. If you install the certificate you’ll see this message instead:
If you’d like to know how, here’s the steps:
1. Right-click on the downloaded exe file and choose the “Digital Signatures” tab:
2. Click on gssezisoft.com in the list and click [Details]:
3. Click [View Certificate]:
4. Click [Install Certificate]:
5. Click [Next] and [Browse] to choose the “Trusted Root Certification Authorities”:
(The browse window looks like this:
)
6. Click [Next]:
7. Click [Finish]:
8. Interestingly the warning says pretty much what you used to do anyway – verify that you got it from here. Unless I’ve updated the certificate (every few years) your message should match this one or at least have the same Thumbprint. If it does or if you’re sure you just downloaded it from this site, click [Yes]:
You’re all done. The certificate is installed just like the ones that come with the browser and/or operating system. If you download any other software from here it will be checked and come up as trusted.
