Secure Flappy Bird. HTTPS Just Got Insanely Easy on AWS

Like 10 minutes easy. And free. The key is Amazon Certificate Manager on Amazon Web Services.

A few days ago I wrote about how I was able to build and deploy a WebGL game of Flappy Bird to a live website in 35 minutes. I glossed over the fact that there was no SSL.

Who cares if my Flappy Bird is not served over HTTPS?

Google.

Do you want this giant “Not secure” icon on your page?

…cause you’ll get it in a few months

Google also announced in *2014* that SSL is a ranking signal. Should you risk being ranked lower in search results because you were too lazy / poor to set up SSL?

Excuse #1: You’re Lazy

Check out this insane readme file that I created for myself for how to set up SSL with the domain that I purchased on gandi.net:

it goes on for 12 steps…

I do not want to do this again.

Excuse #2: You’re Poor

Gandi.net gives you free SSL for the first year, but charges about 16 bucks for subsequent years, more doubling the price of a domain for a single site. Was it really worth shelling out the extra cash for that side project?

No More Excuses

As much as I like supporting the little domain providers like Gandi, the process of connecting a domain to SSL on AWS was dead simple and the cost is…

I like free.

Here’s how I set it up. I’m assuming you’ve used AWS’s static site wizard that I explained in my last article.

In the AWS landing page, go here:

Select your the website you’ve already set up, then go to your Cloudfront CDN:

Edit your “General” settings:

Select Request or Import a Certificate with ACM:

Add your domain name:

Confirm. They’ll send you an email that you need to also approve.

Back in the general settings, link up the ssl certificate:

You now have SECURE flappy!:

SSL is easy, but flappy still isn’t

That’s it. 10 minutes and zero dollars.

https://unitywebgl.com

Are you interested in learning more about WebGL with Unity? I’m now offering a four hour 60+ lecture course on Udemy. WebGL with Unity the Ultimate guide is available to my Medium readers at over 90% off. Just click the link above!

If you learned something new today, please 💚 and follow. It provides great motivation for me to keep writing these articles.