Which domain name registrar should I use?

witchdoctor@lemmy.basedcount.com to Selfhosted@lemmy.world – 101 points –

If I want the maximum anonymity while buying it?

73

Not GoDaddy.

Other than that, go by price and reputation. The DNS service can be replaced pretty quickly for free if their DNS service is a problem. I usually register on DreamHist.com. Then use the free DNS service on CloudFlare.com

GoDaddy changed my domains fucking IP.

That would be like if the USPS was like "oh you thought you're at 123 fake street? No, it's 897 false Ave now lol sucks for anyone who might not know!"

I left immediately.

Namecheap ftw.

Fuck GoDaddy. If you pay them now, transfer.

What changed exactly, a hosting service subbed in GoDaddy, an explicitly set A record in DNS or the assigned namservers themseleves?

6 more...

I didn't see porkbun here. Is there a reason why?

All of my domains are on porkbun.

You can pay with crypto on porkbun too, so in the anonymity regard it should be high up on the list. Other than that, they've never caused me any trouble over multiple registrations, always fast, always zero fuss. Much recommended.

I like that they show the team on the About Us page, always makes me trust companies more. I also like that they have fun with the branding and mascot.

https://njal.la is good in my experience

Literally like the only choice for maximum anonymity

They steal people's domain names, there have been many reports over the past couple of years. If anyone has a domain with them it's recommended to transfer away. They used to be good, but I assume anyone still recommending them isn't up to date on their behavior.

Do you have more details? And some sources so I can read up on that?

all I could Google were random forum threads with and trust pilot reviews with no proof to back their claims. dbzer0 uses njalla just fine

Cloudflare provides at-cost domain name registration. It won’t be as private as njal.la, but if you end up using them for your site, then it would be one less entity to trust if you have your registration and DNS with them.

Cloudflare is my go to registrar today, nothing but good experiences so far.

Same here, I moved my domains from Namecheap to Cloudflare and Cloudflare has been rock solid (no shocker there though).

Good to know. When the 60 day waiting period on transfers expires, I may move my domains to Cloudflare.

Njal.la is where I have all of my domains. You don't have to give any info, you can access it through tor through a .onion domain, and you can pay with monero.

But why? What are you using your domains for?

I use them for email aliases via adyy, and self hosting things like jellyfin and nextcloud. I don't really "need" the privacy, but I still like to have it if I can.

I feel like they are way too expensive, otherwise they are nice.

I also kind of feel like domains shouldn't necessarily be private.

They are a little pricey, I'll give you that. Just out of curiosity why shouldn't domains be private?

I honestly have no good reason. It just feels right for it to be public information for some reason.

With that said, I would never register a personal domain without some kind of "whois" privacy. For obvious reasons.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
DNS Domain Name Service/System
Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
IP Internet Protocol
SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption
TLS Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL
nginx Popular HTTP server

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 12 acronyms.

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If you're in the US and care about domain privacy, don't get a .us domain. .us domains are specifically forbidden from using domain privacy.

To be fair, you could just add bogus information .

If you do you can have your domain taken away if they care enough to investigate. Agreed on the no privacy, it’s annoying.

Define maximum for us?

I use Namecheap and like their services. They have domain privacy aka it’s registered with their information instead of yours. If you just want to hide your name from people Googling or using a domain whois lookup, that’ll do the trick. If you’re trying to hide from people, you might need something more specific.

I switched from Google Domains to Namecheap and found that they have a non-standard requirement for A records (they require an "@" A record) that messed up the transfer. Godaddy, dyndns, and Google Domains use regular zone transfer tables and I thought those entries were all I needed. Nope. I finally emailed support and they told me what was wrong within 24 hours. But meanwhile, my site was down for that time.

I suppose if you worked with one of the companies they partner with and use the automated templates to generate a new entry, it would work out fine. But I was transferring an existing domain. I know better now. But I put this out to warn others.

That's pretty weird, there's no reason to require any DNS record beyond those they have to provide (SOA and NS). You shouldn't have to add an A record if you don't need one.

Was this just a snafu during transfer or is the A record a permanent requirement?

I've been with Namecheap so so many years. Highly recommended.

Namecheap is cheap and has low cost (free?) Privacyguard. Nearlyfreespeech.net is a principles-first web hosting company that is committed to free speech and also offers domain hosting and registration.

I use both, NFS for domain and hosting for my personal website and namecheap for everything else. NFS has no BS and I've had zero problems with them. Namecheap's interface and tools are more sophisticated.

Namecheap all the way. They've been my registrar for almost 20 something years.

I have used namesilo, it's pretty good. I got a very cheap domain for $1. Can't say much about anonymity, but they haven't annoyed me with emails and whatnot. You could also check out porkbun

I used Dreamhost for years but their prices keep creeping upward. I am now slowly migrating to Porkbun and am happy with the much better pricing and transparency.

epik offers lifetime plans for some domain names and is a Swiss company.

It looks like they no longer offer this? Can’t find any trace of it on their website and all the old links referencing them are dead.

I guess they do not offer lifetime plans anymore. I remember a few years ago getting a domain under a lifetime plan.

cloudflare, 10 years. Prices are not going to not move for 10 years