And just to add my 10 cents...I agree with Shannon that SSL might be overkill but it wouldn't hurt if you want to pay extra. The SMF software looks to be built on ASP.NET not php. I assume you all aren't prepared to rebuild the software in php, so if you want to the SMF software the hosting plan will need to support running an ASP.NET application. Vbulletin, Shannon's site, is php software. I know what types of software these are because I have a chrome extension called 'BuiltWith' that tells you what kinds of things a site is built from.
(I have been learning web development for the past 2 years so it's funny to see y'all talking about all of this.) SpiritImage you are very knowledgable do you own a website?
SSL protects the password when transmitted over the wire. There is no overkill when it comes to security, but IME most folks do not understand, do not wish to understand, or simply do not care based on others' thoughts and based on many other sites that have "never had a problem". (famous last words).
This site I'm 99.99% sure it is PHP server side code. Most all these forums are. Why? Because it's also free. BuiltWith may show you the web server software used (which by the way can be obfuscated), in this case they may be using IIS which is Microsoft which might well imply .NET. However, it's simple to install PHP.exe on an IIS server.
No I don't own a website, and I hope I never do.
