Why buy a certificate if I can make one for free?

Everyone can indeed make an SSL certificate. However, there are many disadvantages when you act as your own Certifcate Authority (CA).

1. Web browsers have a limited number of CA certificates built-in. If you write your own certificate, your visitor's web browser will not trust it and show various messages for this, for instance in Mozilla Firefox 3.0:
2. It is a fairly difficult process to establish your own Certificate Authority first and then create and sign your own certificate.

If you buy a certificate from Hostbasket, it will be signed by Thawte. This CA is built in the web browsers and you will have no worries about signing the certificate.