A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Canuck here. I've been moving all my domains from porkbun over to OVH. I still use desec.io for the DNS since they're based in Germany and like to keep it separate from the registrar.
If OVH plays its cards right they're going to be getting a lot more business from those looking to dump GCS, AWS, and Azure.
I found OVH quite confusing. Do they upsell you like crazy (e.g. is WHOIS protection an upsell)? I don't want to create an account on purpose just to find out.
No upselling. Yes they might have something in the order process. Like when ordering a VPS you can add windows os or some control panel type software. I didn't pay anything extra and my domains all have private whois details when lookups are done. The one thing they did offer in the order process for domain transfer was something to do with anycast DNS, but it was just a box on the page and wasn't in your face or annoying.
No annoying emails either. I only get emails from them related to services I purchased from them which include changes to whois contacts(also usually get a email from CIRA for my .ca domains), bill PDF being ready for download, or additional IP is available and ready for use etc.
Understood 🫡 thanks for that. I am generally happy with IONOS however their DNS propagation seems to take forever. I have a new domain I bought a couple days ago and my email provider's DNS still hasn't propagated... I thought we were past the 72h propagation era, but I guess not with everyone.
I moved all my domains over to FullHost.ca from NameCheap and they’ve been pretty good so far. As far as I can tell, they’re just a reseller but their support has been really good.
I can highly recommend Mythic Beasts (UK).
There is no upsell or variable pricing and they make money by charging a flat rate on top of the cost from their supplier. See this blog post for more info
I use them as well, never had any issues.
They have a useful API I leverage to manage DNS entries with scripts and cron jobs which is probably fairly standard these days but seemed to be a little harder to find when I first moved to them.
Does their final price already include WHOIS protection?
OVH no problems for years.
BUT choose domain that is also maintained by non-US organization.
Like national TLDs from the EU, or fancy like one., cloud., ...
Is .dev maintained by the US?
It is, I just checked, by a subsidiary of google
That's unfortunate :(
You can easily check it by WHOIS:
$ whois dev.
% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org/
% This query returned 1 object
domain: DEV
organisation: Charleston Road Registry Inc.
address: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
address: Mountain View CA 94043
address: United States of America (the)
# the rest of output omitted
And some hints gives Wikipedia: List of Internet top-level domains.
I use https://njal.la/ it's based in Sweden started by the co founder of Pirate Bay
Those reviews don't look very inspiring, not gonna lie. Also, their About page says their service is run from Costa Rica?
Ultimately I don't think these "privacy-first" domain registrars are a great choice, which is a rare thing to say about an internet service.
But you're dealing with private property here and being ICANN-accredited (which Njalla isn't) is kind of important if you're gonna do something serious with your domain. You want those protections that excessive privacy won't permit having.
I'm quite happy with EuroDNS. They even include free email housing if you want it.
Their trust pilot page is a shitshow, but I've had few problems in the 7 years I have used them. I have 9 domains registered, one of which is not possible to get back since I'm required to provide proof that I live in Sweden (.se domain). Wasn't the case when I initially bought it in 2018.
I've had few problems in the 7 years I have used them[...] one of which is not possible to get back since I'm required to provide proof that I live in Sweden [...] Wasn't the case when I initially bought it in 2018.
Sounds like a severe case of Stockholm syndrome to me. /s
Anyways, you do you buddy. I don't trust them at all after those reviews. Especially when IONOS exists.
PS: kinda funny that a supposedly privacy-focused registrar demands an official document of your place of residence. Sounds like the promised privacy is just a gimmick (or, something that all registrars offer by default as long as you choose the WhoIS guard option).
Hello!
I was a 20 years old customer of GANDI. My advice is now to use Bookmyname or OVH.
Hey I just bought a domain for the first time, from Gandi. Could I ask you, what made you take that decision?
Hello, sure you can ask :-)
GANDI was bought by Strikwerda Investments and then they raised their price.
For instance for a .net domain it was around €15 and now it's more than €20 for a new domain name. If you want to keep the domain in GANDI the renew is around €38.
I think it will work with GANDI, you still have the choice to change after if you like.
Keep an eye on the price. I recently switched my .be domains from Gandi to Dynadot. 36 vs 6.8 euros per year, I had no idea such a difference was possible. Fuck Gandi.
I just wish more of the non-US ones supported .ca domains. :(
Easydns.ca