What Certificate for signing an Ionic (Cordova) Windows 10 UWP application?

Question

I have an Ionic application, which is currently deployed to the Apple and Android stores. I Now wish to deploy to the Windows store. I have Visual Studio 2015 and have built running the Ionic CLI. I see a lot of created files, including a CordovaApp.Windows10_1.0.0.43_x86.appx

For iOS, the signing is handled via the xcode / developers console, and for Android I created using the keytool which is part of the JDK. Now for Windows..

I have found this on certificates, and this on signing.

I just want to see if I have this understanding correct before I do anything.... so unlike the iOS and Android, where I can just sign, with no extra cost, for the UWP, you actually need to purchase a certificate, just like you do for SSL, to use for the signing of a UWP? Also the app uses SSL (makes https calls to a server via SSL) - not sure if this makes any difference to the certificate required (as when I ran in debug, the https call seemed to be blocked).

Thanks in advance for any information!

Answer 1

I just want to see if I have this understanding correct before I do anything.... so unlike the iOS and Android, where I can just sign, with no extra cost, for the UWP, you actually need to purchase a certificate, just like you do for SSL, to use for the signing of a UWP?

No, you don't need to purchase an certificate to publish your app to store. You only need to create a certificate for package signing, for details, please refer to Create a certificate for package signing. Then you can sign your app using SignTool, please refer to Sign an app package using SignTool.

After that, when you are submitting your app, you will need to have a developer account, which requires some monetary cost,