I’m currently on the lookout for privacy-respecting domain registrars. What are you guys using and why?
Owners of a domain, which domain registrar did you choose and why?
Submitted 2 months ago by AlexPewMaster@lemmy.zip to selfhosted@lemmy.world
Comments
solidgrue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
+1 for Porkbun. They are exceptionally unexceptional.
tburkhol@lemmy.world 2 months ago
+1 porkbun. $1.60 for a .top whois privacy. 2FA with security key. Even let me host my own nameserver, so I can have separate internal and external views.
lud@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Any registrar allows you to host your own nameservers. You just point to your server from the registrar console.
owen@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Porkbun works good for me
thejevans@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
In the process of moving all my stuff to porkbun as well. It’s the best.
filister@lemmy.world 2 months ago
CloudFlare
USSEthernet@startrek.website 1 month ago
Yup, they don’t mark up prices, they allow you to proxy traffic though them, and they have a WAF that you can set up 5 (I think) firewall rules for your traffic for free.
subtext@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I figure if I’m already using their proxy, may as well have my domains there as well… one fewer party to trust.
ikidd@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Namecheap for registrar and Cloudflare for the name servers. Always keep those services separated so if one dies, you can still get into the other service to fix it.
blurg@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If a registrar goes out of business, ICANN transfers the domain(s) to another registrar.
If a name server business fails, you change name servers through your registrar.
You can’t really fix registrar services in your name server, nor name server problems through your registrar. (Unless, of course, your registrar is also your name server.)
ikidd@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If your registrar goes down but the NS are on a different provider, the root servers will keep that NS record and all will be well. You can go to a different registrar and transfer it over, but in the meantime it’ll be fine and you can do whatever you need with your DNS.
If the DNS provider goes down, you can go to your registrar and quickly change the NS to another provider. It’ll quickly be back up on your new DNS servers.
Believe me, I’ve done this for 3 decades because one or the other have gone down on me more than once and I’ve had minimal downtime with this separation. Even when I was running my own NS, I kept more than one NS outside my server farm so if my connections went down, I could pop the farm up on a backup colo and point my tertiary accordingly.
MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I was thinking Cloudflare as a registrar and AWS as name servers, but good choice regardless.
Moonrise2473@feddit.it 1 month ago
Is it possible to do that? Afaik they don’t allow to use different name servers if they’re registrars
I had the domain on a registrar that didn’t allow changing name servers (Tophost for 6 euro per year) and I had to “hop” with ovh for 60 days before having cloudflare for a registrar as they didn’t allow to transfer the domain with different NS
ohlaph@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Cloudflare and Namecheap. I would use Cloudflare because of cost
atocci@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Google Domains because I have a Google account and buying a domain on it was easy when I needed it. I’m still on Google Domains but you’ve reminded me I need to continue the transfer to Cloudflare because Square Space doesn’t support Dynamic DNS.
b1g_bake@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Same, Google was easy and as cheap as anyone else. Now Cloudflare
csm10495@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Exactly the same boat. But man Cloudflare is better in every way. Having an API to update/fetch records for a zone does wonders.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 1 month ago
On Google now as well, what was the cutover like to cloudflare?
atocci@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Transferring was straightforward enough, but there were a couple steps that involved waiting for things to update before you could continue and I forgot to get back to it for a while after they were done. Other than that, all my records seem to have transferred over correctly and all I had to do manually was reconfigure my DDNS client and set up email forwarding with gmail again.
rolaulten@startrek.website 1 month ago
Enterprise tooling (aka a usable API) and it stays out if my way.
eratic@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
njal.la is without a doubt one of the better ones if privacy is number one priority.
AlexPewMaster@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Njalla doesn’t seem to be a good option according to this comment on a privacy-focused forum.
Zpiritual@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Interestingly that is why I chose them like 5 years ago as I figured that is a plus as far as privacy is concerned. Having 1337 show up when performing a domain owner lookup instead of my name seem like a good thing and if I need it to be registered to me it’s easy enough to transfer.
I live the service though and brokep being involved makes them worth considering for anyone into privacy.
wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Njalla was found and is ran my Peter Sundee, aka brokep, of Pirate Bay fame… If there’s anyone you can trust …
olof@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I would also say this. Njalla is good
dinckelman@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I have mine on Namecheap, but i’ve moved the nameserver to Cloudflare. Been using them for a while, can’t complain at all. Am also paying for their email service on the same domain
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Namecheap because I pay 88 cents a year for my domain.
twei@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Which TLD?
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 1 month ago
(Numbers).xyz
I only use it for stuff for me. If you do a real name it’s more.
MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Cloudflare for support (tooling), Njalla for privacy (run by the pirate bay founder), porkbun for a happy medium and for the cool kids.
gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Namecheap since I have been using them since the 00s and never had any problems.
nik282000@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Namecheap, cheap, easy to use, easy to setup DDNS, helpful support staff. I have heard horror stories of them selling popular domains out from under their owner but none were recent.
khorak@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Same. I buy all my domains there. And in case someone needs a proper API and support for the dns challenge, host your DNS at DeSEC.
tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net 1 month ago
Never heard of DeSEC before, but it looks damn cool! Been looking to get away from CloudFlare.
dan@upvote.au 1 month ago
A lot of these DNS hosts don’t support using them for secondary DNS… It looks like deSEC is the same :/
I like using my own DNS server as a hidden primary because it lets me do bulk and programmatic updates more easily.
I’m using DNSMadeEasy for some of my important domains because they have the fastest servers, their service is really reliable, and major brands are using the same DNS servers so it seems like I can trust them. However, after being acquired by DigiCert, their prices went up over 10x… the $60/year plan I was on is now $675/year.
HE’s free DNS supports secondary DNS but their reliability isn’t great. DNSimple supports it but I’m over their limit of 100 records for some zones. Hexonet supports it but I couldn’t figure out how to get it working and neither could their support.
ExperimentalGuy@programming.dev 1 month ago
Namecheap bc I typed where to buy cheap domains and that was the first one.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Cloudflare, because my understanding is that they typically renew at basically cost, and that’s where most of my other DNS stuff is anyway.
I typically buy domains at whatever registrar is cheapest at the time for initial purchase, which most recently was namecheap IIRC.
MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m interested in your “other DNS stuff”
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Likely a bad description. I more meant DNS, page rules, tunnels, zero trust logins, and more. It’s honestly just easier to keep it all in one place, and to be honest they are one of the more reliable sources for… literally all of those things.
__init__@programming.dev 2 months ago
Cloudflare cause they already had my DNS and google domains was on its way to the google graveyard. Not sure how privacy respecting they are but they do offer some kind of partial whois redaction. Surely better than google though?
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Namecheap.
It wasn’t GoDaddy.
aodhsishaj@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Gandi.net
GDRP and anonymous hosting. Pretty great.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 month ago
If you don’t have domains with TLDs that Gandi charges 3x-6x more than you can get elsewhere… then yeah, their registrar and DNS services are pretty nice.
linuxguy@lemmy.gregw.us 1 month ago
Gandi did something in the last year or two that made me migrate off them. Don’t remember what it was but it was a deal breaker.
aodhsishaj@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Their pricing structure doesn’t affect what I have hosted and I’m selfhosting email in dockermail. My whois is still anonymized how I like.
oh_gosh_its_osh@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
+1 for Gandi, as they also have an API for management as well and support ACME DNS challenge for Let’s encrypt.
PanArab@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Porkbun
Not kosher and offered best price
MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Technically Cloudflare has the best prices
dan@upvote.au 1 month ago
Cloudflare locks you in to using their DNS though. I’d rather pay a bit more to avoid vendor lock-in.
RegalPotoo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Previously Gandi, but they’ve jacked up their prices and cut features, so in the process of moving to AWS Route53.
My main requirements are:
- Competitively priced (doesn’t need to be the absolute cheapest, but the feature set better justify the price)
- Able to manage domain with Terraform (I’ve got 10 domains, and copy-pasting DNSSEC keys around gets old really fast)
- Not be CloudFlare (fuck those guys in particular)
SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org 2 months ago
I’ve been using nearlyfreespeech.net for a very long time. They’re a small, reliable, outfit that’s been around forever and definitely respects your privacy.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Namecheap because it’s easy and quick to use. They have good prices on new domains as well. Their prices are less attractive in renewals though, so I’d suggest transferring your domain after buying it to Cloudflare or NameSilo or PorkBun or the like.
HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Njal.la. They buy the domain for you and let you control it. They also don’t give whois information by default.
hitagi@ani.social 2 months ago
Porkbun asks for your ID now so that might not be “privacy-respecting” but their CS is very helpful from my experience.
I have domains in Netim and Spaceship, and I have no problems with either so far.
Skanky@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Porkbun because it was super easy, one of the cheapest, and has rest good guides for noobs for how to connect various hosting sites (like, using Google sites but owning the domain from porkbun)
neurospice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I rent a domain from namesilo
dan@upvote.au 1 month ago
We usually just say that we’re registering a domain name, or renewing the registration.
Renting a domain usually refers to something different entirely. It’s when someone owns a valuable domain name, and someone else pays them a monthly or yearly fee to use it, like renting a house. It’s sometimes done with premium domains that would be very expensive to acquire outright.
neurospice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Ah, thanks for clearing that up!
redxef@feddit.de 1 month ago
OVH, reasonably priced, API for DNS management and existing certbot integration
onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 month ago
Some European ones because the domains have European TLDs.
.eufor example is only available by EU registrars IINM. But also, I do my best to keep the money local where I can.clmbmb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I don’t think that’s true anymore. I moved my .eu to porkbun (which is an American company) and it works. Also, I just tried registering a new .eu domain with them and it works - and they have very good prices! (I’m not affiliated with them)
inson1@lemm.ee 1 month ago
not true anymore, everybody can buy eu domain
Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 2 months ago
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 IP Internet Protocol VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
[Thread #611 for this sub, first seen 17th Mar 2024, 21:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Kvan@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Was on Google cause I just initially was setting them up there. Moved to cloudflare the day they added dev tlds.
abeorch@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Ive been thinking about #dnsregistrars and #ssl certificates lately. Does anyone know a #coop #registrar ?
karpintero@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Recently moved over to porkbun after dealing with a couple billing issues with namecheap and not getting the best customer service. Been pretty happy so far.
essteeyou@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I moved all of my domains to Porkbun when Google Domains started to close down or become SquareSpace or whatever they were doing.
No complaints so far.
mikyopii@programming.dev 2 months ago
I’ve been with Porkbun for over a year now. No complaints.
Zikeji@programming.dev 2 months ago
I’ve been using Porkbun for over 5 years and haven’t had any issues. I switched from a mix of Google Domains and Namecheap.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
So I’m quite new to this, and searching around hasn’t been to clear… if I’m looking to have my own E-mail domain, do I buy a domain in addition to subscribing to an E-mail… service… thing?
exception4289@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yes, you need to buy (register) a domain beforehand.
The e-mail provider of your choice that provides custom domains will ask you to
AlexPewMaster@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
What kind of TLD did you buy? Did you choose a TLD that’s supported by the WHOIS privacy? I wanted to see if
alexpewmaster.dewas available, and it told me this:Zikeji@programming.dev 2 months ago
Generally the country based TLDs have that problem. That isn’t unique to porkbun or .de
Engywuck@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I have a .de domain with them. No personal info are shown on whois info.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 month ago
That’s a really weird way of putting it. EU ccTLDs don’t offer whois privacy because it’s not needed. They have whois privacy built-in as well as very strong privacy laws.
If you want a .de domain I would recommend using inwx.de as registrar they have extremely low prices for .de and often run discounts for the first year as well.
The one thing to keep in mind if you’re not a German citizen and/or not have a German address is that you need to provide one after you register a .de domain. INWX has a service for 3 eur/yr that will provide one on your behalf.
Some other cheap European domains without any requirements and built-in mandatory whois privacy are .be, .nl, .fr and .ro.
Keep in mind that some of these ccTLD don’t allow purchasing multiple years in advance and also force you to reset your leftover term if you transfer.
If you’re gonna get an European ccTLD you should also use an European registrar like INWX or Netim or Gandi. Using an European ccTLD with an American registrar kind of defies the whole point.