I just saw that Google will be shutting down Google Domains / selling all domains to Squarespace, which makes me wanna see if I can pick a better registrar.
I only used Google Domains for the reliability and convenience, but would rather not go with Squarespace. I don’t see any section on hosting/registrars on the main site so was wondering what anyone else recommends.
I’ve heard talk before that Njalla is bad because you don’t actually own the domain and there have been instances of them shutting down / revoking access?
Also along the same lines I wouldn’t mind recommendations for good website hosting services too.
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I’ll second porkbun. They are great.
If not porkbun then name cheap.
If not either of those anyone but godaddy.
Don’t forget to run the DEJIGAMAFLIPPER on your domain after purchase. Very important.
So I hear the “anyone but godaddy” thing a lot, however I have struggled to find anyone that has the same features as they do. For example:
- Domain security which entirely hides contact information for registries
- Email Proxy
- 2FA that supports yubikey or security keys
- Doesn’t black hole registration when using a protonmail.com email domain.
- EDIT: Porkbun support took care of this after sending them an email. YAY
The email and contact proxy seems to be specific to certain TLDs but for the one I happen to use GD supports it.
I’d love to move to something else if for no other reason than the website is annoying, but every time I look the other options are worse.
- WHOIS privacy is like the most common feature among registrars?
- Mail forwarding isn’t always free but pretty common too
- According to dongleauth DNSimple, Gandi, Namecheap, and Porkbun also support webauthn right now (hover plsss)
I see the anybody but GoDaddy thing a lot too. The controversies page on Wikipedia does a decent job at pointing out some of the reasons people dislike them.
Looking at feature set though, I’m in the same boat as you. Part of it is me being lazy though. When my registrations come up for renewal in a few years I’ll take a serious look at porkbun.
Porkbun supports all of this, and it’s one of the cheapest I’ve found
If nothing else, GoDaddy is expensive as f**k. I was quoted ~$150/yr to host a site + purchase a domain. Same service on Namecheap (same SSL and HTTPS and whatnot) costs me ~$25/yr.
i did end up going back to namecheap, where i already had an account. i’m trying not to create new relationships with businesses that heavily use recaptcha, and with porkbun it’s part of the login process
damn, automatic whois privacy and easy let’s encrypt certs - that does look legit
I also recommend Porkbun, I have been using them for years with no problems.
Almost any registar is good, except GoDaddy or Newfold Digital / Endurance International Group or Network Solutions.
I would suggest looking at TLD List for the major registar’s and their prices.
Regarding good website hosting, you have to find the one best for you (and your needs). You can go with what a registar offers, but some may offer other things you need.
I use https://www.namecheap.com/ myself. The Security Now (Steve Gibson) seems to use and talk fondly of https://www.hover.com/. Know nothing about them personally.
Same. Use namecheap. But can’t I fully trust them either.
The question is what is the thing you do not trust? Domain registration is not anonymous. You can use privacy feature, so it is not simple to track you down but typically the registrar needs to know who you are. I am not aware of other alternatives other then Tor services though maybe there are.
I use namecheap.com but porkbun.com has also been highly recommended.
On the hosting side, I’ve been very happy with racknerd.com. They’re still listing and honoring their black Friday deals [1] and they’re ridiculously cheap! I have two shared hosting accounts but keep wanting to pick up at a VPS at these prices.
[1] https://my.racknerd.com/index.php?rp=/store/black-friday-2022
Njalla is bad because you don’t actually own the domain and there have been instances of them shutting down / revoking access?
Haven’t heard of them revoking access for any legitimate users. I like not actually owning the domain because this means not ever seeing a fucking form asking for my literal home address.
ICANN’s RAA says nothing about your address needing to be your home address. It can be a P.O. Box or a mail forwarding service. It just needs to be a contact address.
Sure, I mean, I don’t have any of these though, and I don’t want to deal with even the remote possibility of snail mail arriving From The Internet.
And hey. That’s a good reason to use njalla and everyone needs to make their own decisions. It just comes at the risk of if they get shut down you really won’t have any claim to your domains. It is more private for sure but comes with elevated risk of loss compared to using a traditional registrar and giving them some contact information. My only point was to make sure people are aware of the tradeoff.
Cloudflare domains seems to be the cheapest or the same price as porkbun.
I have used many in the past, but currently use Cloudflare (out of laziness since I use them for DNS and such too) and Hover. Hover in particular is neat as it is the b2c registrar of Tucows, the company that has been the biggest b2b backend registrar for small registrars since the 90’s.
Cloudflare if you use a common TLD, Porkbun if you use a newer Top Level Domain.
I use Najalla, and it works great for me.
I find tsohost is pretty good for both domains and hosting
I have always used nearlyfreespeech.net.
