Hi Folks...I know this is way off topic but I figure someone here may know. I want to start a small classified ad web site and am checking out different web hosting deals, some have an option for an " SSL certificate". Do I need this for such a site if the customers use something like PayPal to pay for the ads?
Any help would be appreaceated.

Thanks and later...Todd

Even though Pay Pal is used for the monetary transactions, you may want to use a "secure" connection for private data, such as user account information etc...
In that case then a SSL certificate would be needed.

Thanks for the advice....Later...Todd

Check out http://www.lunarpages.com.

I have been with them for a few years now and found them to be very reliable with good tech support.

The SSL is extra although they are pretty competetive.

I'm way late on this one, but realized that nobody answered your question. You would get your own SSL certificate if your customers need to verify that you are who you claim to be - if they're paying you directly, for example. You can setup secure Paypal payments that use Paypal's certificates. The same is true of other online credit card processing services. The user is verifying that they're not going to a "phishing" site, claiming to be Paypal, whose real purpose is to take their account info to log into the real Paypal for an unauthorized transfer.