The Road Ahead

We have removed support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 from our servers with immediate effect (16:00, 26th March 2020). This has been done to enhance the security of our services and is accordance with best practices as outlined in IETF RFC 7525. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 have known security issues and there are no fixes or patches available.

If you are using a certificate based on either of these protocols, you must update them with a TLS 1.2+ certificate immediately. If you are, or wish to be, PCI-DSS compliant, you should adopt TLS 1.2+.

Most mainstream web browsers will cease support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.2 in the first half of 2020. Approximate deadlines are:

• Microsoft IE & Edge - first half of 2020
• Mozilla Firefox - March 2020
• Safari/WebKit - March 2020
• Google Chrome - January 2020

Most web browsers will issue a security warning if you attempt to connect to a website using either TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1. To ensure you receive the best possible protection, we advise you to upgrade your web browser to the latest version. Most web browsers will do this automatically.

Let's Encrypt / SSLForFree Certificates

All free certificates generated through our hosting control panel since the beginning of March have been TLS 1.2+.

In accordance with our Privacy Policy and our GDPR compliance, we have disabled direct remote access to our MariaDB servers. Access to MariaDB databases will still be available via the MariaDB Web Management tools:

Why?

For the last couple of months, we've been testing SSL connections for MariaDB using our in-house test servers. Regrettably these tests have demonstrated some inconsistencies and performance concerns with the various applications and services that use MariaDB when using SSL connections. We are still investigating this and hope to be able to enable SSL connections as soon as possible.

In our Privay Policy, we state that all connections to our websites and services are protected by SSL / HTTPS. As we are unable to deliver this protection, we are disabling this connection until such time we are able to protect it.

How do I manage my MariaDB database?

You can still manage your MariaDB databases using the Adminer tool available on your web hosting server (see links below). Connections to Adminer are protected by SSL / HTTPS.

Adminer on AVON

Adminer on SEVERN

What happens if I have a large query?

If you have a substantial query, please contact us via the Support Helpdesk as we may be able to run the query manually. Please note that this service is discretionary and we cannot provide assistance with debugging queries.

We've upgraded the software running our hosting control panel. This upgrade is primarily a security and reliability upgrade (i.e. fixing bugs and annoyances) and so most users should notice no difference or fundamental changes to functionality.

Free SSL certificates by LetsEncrypt are now available for all hosting customers through the Hosting Control Panel. Once installed, the certificates will automatically renew every 60 days.

Installation is quick and easy to do. For a step-by-step guide, see Adding a free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate to your website.

We will be upgrading our MySQL database servers between 18:00 and 21:00 on the 19th July 2015. During this time, there will be short periods when MySQL databases services will not be available. This will impact on any website using a MySQL database including our own website.

Our standard mail, Hosted Exchange, Webmail and Support Helpdesk are not affected by the upgrade work and will continue to operate as normal.