We can’t wait to see websites turn on TLS with Let’s Encrypt. Trust is our most important asset, however, and we need to take the necessary time to make sure our systems are secure and stable.

We’ve decided to push our launch schedule back a bit to give us time to further improve our systems. Our new schedule is:

First certificate: Week of September 7, 2015

General availability: Week of November 16, 2015

In the ten weeks between these two dates we’ll gradually issue more and more certificates. We’ll start by issuing a small number of certs to whitelisted domains and expand our issuance as we gain confidence in our systems (stay tuned for instructions on getting your domains added to our early-access whitelist). When it’s time for general availability we will open up our systems to all requests.

A cross-signature will be in place before general availability. This will allow certificates from Let’s Encrypt to validate automatically for the vast majority of consumers. Prior to cross-signing, browsers will not accept our certificates as valid unless a user has installed our root as trusted.

I want to thank our staff, partners, sponsors, and contributors. We’re making great progress, despite this delay, and it’s all possible due to their hard work.