If I want the maximum anonymity while buying it?
I used [large american registrar], but switched to a small one in my country because I wanted to pay a local business. I found it from somebody’s compilation of companies that offer a TLD for my country, and I just picked the recommended one in that post. It was the one that charged the least.
Keep in mind that with a smaller registrar you won’t be able to get a TLS cert using the “do some shit with my domain records” method - you’ll have to always install the nginx/Apache etc. plugin for Let’s Encrypt
You don’t have to use the registrar’s DNS system.
I use LuaDNS. They even offer a fully functional free tier that might be enough for your needs.
They have an API that can be used with certbot, and you can manage your zones with git.
Ah right, sorry, switched things up. Indeed, I also use my registrar’s DNS system, but if I switched to something that has an API supported by certbot (e.g. dns zones that cost 0.5 eur in large cloud providers) it would work.
I use cloudns for nameserving. It’s free
I didn’t see porkbun here. Is there a reason why?
All of my domains are on porkbun.
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.
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 use porkbun for exactly this reason. I make crypto and want to use it.
Namecheap with 20% off coupon
They also add domain privacy for all the purchases with 0 cost.
Nice, all my domains are there. Would you mind sharing the coupon?
https://www.forbes.com/coupons/namecheap.com/
There are other options that might be cheaper than straight 20%
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
Dead link. lol
My bad, sorry. Dreamhost.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?
A records changed to new IPs.
They are also super expensive.
Upvoted for “not GoDaddy.” GoDaddy is by far the worst tech company I’ve ever dealt with, and I’m being generous calling them a tech company.
Worse than Oracle and Salesforce?
Yes, but not worse than Yahoo[.]
Why is Yahoo bad?
In the olden days, Yahoo shuttered some of the largest digital properties on the internet with too little notice for them to be meaningfully archived (especially Yahoo Groups (easily the Reddit and Fediverse of its day) and Geocities (at a time before social media, a place to make a corner of the internet one’s own, it had mountains of longform geekery that’s now lost forever)).
Yahoo also used to be one of most widely used free email providers. Not as ubiquitous as Gmail, but definitely very popular. During that time, they had at least two – and almost certainly more than four – instances where bad actors gained access to user accounts and Yahoo failed to immediately notify impacted users.
This one time, they admitted that all their user email addresses, which then numbered in the billions, had been compromised by a years-old hack whose disclosure they seem to have withheld. The same thing happened a few months later, but affected only some email addresses. For the latter event, they were proven to have withheld discovery of the breach.
There was this one journalist whose email details they gave to the Chinese government to enable his arrest. Then they lied about it to Congress.
And while the NSA likely listens to every piece of data available to them, which trivially and almost effortlessly includes emails, and while Yahoo is one of the tech companies whose NSA PRISM membership is documented, Yahoo additionally performed scans for crime-adjacent keywords on all its users’ incoming and outgoing emails for years.
Well, shit. That’s quite scummy of them.
epik
offers lifetime plans for some domain namesand 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.
This EPIK? https://www.epik.com/about/ It says nowhere they’re swiss and the contact address points to an US location.
I thought they were based in Switzerland.
deleted by creator
they, don’t even exist anymore
… they sold it off to squarespace
I’ve had good luck with Namecheap.
Good luck with Namecheap
I’ve used Namecheap for several years, no problems experienced with it.
I don’t think you get anonymity with namecheap
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 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.
Nearlyfreespeech.net has a privacy option.
Edit: free not feee.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 use Porkbun.com. It has modern interface.
