Summary

In this chapter, we have learned what OpenSSL is and why it’s needed. We also walked through the history of OpenSSL and had a glimpse into its future. We reviewed other TLS libraries and competitors to OpenSSL and highlighted their strengths and weaknesses.

You should now have a better understanding of which TLS library you should choose in any given situation. And if the situation is not special, I recommend that you choose OpenSSL since many other people have chosen the same, which implies that OpenSSL is the most popular TLS library and the de facto industry standard.

Now that you know why you should choose OpenSSL, you need to learn how to use it. The next few chapters will be practical ones in that we will learn how to use OpenSSL’s powerful features – from symmetric encryption to creating TLS connections with X.509 certificates.