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I like Gandi for domain hosting (although they have other services I don't use). They seem to care about more than my money.
In fairness, downside is they are french, where since recently they have bad laws wrt freedom/privacy IIRC, but that's not Gandi's fault.

As you've implied, but just to make it clear: It's not legitimate for someone to declare your domain's death in absentia just because they can't see anything new and cute. The domain name system was not invented for website addresses in the first place; it was invented to let people assign their own names for computers, and it's nobody's business whether they can see your list of zero or a million computers that are also none of their business. That being said, I'll mention a few tips to defend your domain against self-serving grabby types:

• As long as you already have web hosting anyway, just make sure there's a homepage that mentions that the domain really is in use. It doesn't have to have images or anything fancy at all; just enough to let people know that someone is paying attention if they pull any tricks. Maybe mention that it's been in use since 2001, to indirectly discourage anyone from thinking that a typosquatting case is going to be in their favor. In any case, it will get the point across that you're not a squatter.
• If you ever get tired of paying for hosting, some registrars (like Gandi) will host a redirect or a simple 1-page or 3-page site of your own content for free (not just placeholder spam for their own company). That's enough to tell grabby types to move along and stay off your lawn.
• If you think someone might actually try to impersonate you to hijack your registration (either by registrar move, transfer of ownership, or "updating" your contact information to theirs), have your domain registrar add protective EPP flags for your domain. You have to go through the extra step of having those turned back off later if you really want to transfer or early-delete your domain name. Some of them:
  • clientDeleteProhibited and clientTransferProhibited: These stop your domain from being dropped or moved to another registrar where the attacker already has their own control in place. (Some registrars may already have them turned on.)
  • clientUpdateProhibited: If you think you're under active attack, you might ask for this; it usually means you can't even change which nameservers the domain uses, without asking for the flag to be removed first.
  • serverDeleteProhibited, serverTransferProhibited, serverUpdateProhibited: These are "super" versions of the above, but you probably don't want them unless someone is aggressively trying to steal your domain. Adding and removing them on your own request means that you have to ask your registrar, then the registrar has to forward the request to the top-level domain registry, who then has to add or remove the flags.
• While you're playing with your domain registration: Make sure your registration contact information is good enough that your registrar can actually reach you if something goes wrong. Strictly speaking, someone can file a whois data complaint against a domain, claiming the contact data is phony, and then the registrar has to make sure they can contact someone who will still claim control of the domain.

As in https://www.gandi.net/. They have data centers in the US and Luxembourg in addition to France. They started out as a domain registrar in Paris, and now do quite a bit of Xen hosting business.

+1 for Gandi. I've been using them for over a decade, and have no plans to leave. They cost more than the dirt cheap registrars, but they're worth it, for all the reasons that heypete mentioned.

They recently adopted a motto that sums them up rather well: No bullshit.

'nuff said. Gandi is easy, fast, reliable, and above all honest: no hidden fees, no surprises, and all the functions you need.

I use it for all my domain registration, and I have never ever had a complaint with them. I have no idea if their hosting offers are as good as the DNS registration, though, and I have heard some bad things on their VPS. Make of that what you will.

I have been trolling Slashdot for about 15 years and respect the views of the users here more than anywhere else. I would love to hear your advice and/or warnings in this matter.

Flattery will get you nowhere.

I pretty much use gandi for all my needs. They do .cn domains. Gandi is probably not the cheapest, but you get quite a lot for your money.

No bullshit! https://www.gandi.net/no-bulls...

Gandi: why pay less?

Yeah, looks like a lot of registrars are price gouging - according to Nominet, the wholesale price is the same. And definitely don't ever use 123Reg because they'll even charge you to switch. Fuckers!

The only registrar I've found thus-far with the same price for .co.uk and .uk is Mythic Beasts although they're a bit pricey unless you're registering for 10 years.

Gandi.net don't appear to have .uk pricing yet unless I'm missing something!

gandi.net

As an example, NameCheap, an American registrar and host, sells Comodo certs for $9/year. GeoTrust are $10.95/year, while Thawte certs are $40/year. Prices drop by a few dollars for multi-year purchases. Gandi, a French registrar and host, offers Comodo certs for $16/year, again with discounts for multi-year purchases.

StartSSL offers domain-validated certs completely free of cost for non-commercial uses. Commercial users are expected to undergo validation (they validate both the person requesting the certificate as well as the organization) which costs about $100/year but entitles them to issue an infinite number of certificates for systems they control (i.e., no issuing certs for your friends, but issuing certs for your work servers is fine). In short, they charge money for what costs them money: signing a cert is essentially free, while validating identity is expensive.

There's plenty of options for cheap certificates, particularly if you buy from a reseller rather than from the CA itself.

I was in a similar siatuation a while ago and chose to host everything on my own. Sure it means a bit of work (and I have to admit I'm not quite done yet) but if you enjoy sysadmin stuff it's not too time-consuming and you might be able to learn something, i.e. I chose to use FreeBSD which I'd never used before. Plus things like owncloud should make calendar and contacts synchronization quite simple without relying on third parties to keep their services running.

Of course the major downside is that you will have to do backups and hard drive replacements on your own. With a reasonable RAID configuration and using one of the many cloud storage providers for (of course highly encrypted) backups that shouldn't be too bad though.

Or you could do something in between, i.e. rent a "server" from somebody like amazon or gandi if you don't want to worry about hardware.

To me, the small amount of work and money that is required to run my own infrastructure is certainly worth it not to have to trust a third party with my data, plus running your own things gives you great options for random hacks and fun little projects.

I have both DNSSEC and IPv6 working for all of the domains I moved to GANDI

I use GANDI for all my DNS needs. They offer hosting, and support DNSEC and Ipv6. In addition they support various open source projects, and have a moto of "no bullshit"; what more could you want?

I use GANDI for all my DNS needs. They offer hosting, and support DNSEC and Ipv6. In addition they support various open source projects, and have a moto of "no bullshit"; what more could you want?

Gandi includes private whois with all registrations. There are a number of other registrars who will do it for a fee.

(Solely in my opinion) you should stay away from GoDaddy though. They charge $20 every time they discover that your whois information is fake, probably to get you to buy their private registration service. Instead, I transferred all my domains to Gandi. Everybody wins, right?

aiee. keep in mind that i haven't tried this and i have little experience with hosted dns :)

as an example that has been mentioned on /. , gandi offers secondary dns server :
http://wiki.gandi.net/en/domains/dns#gandi-s-secondary-dns

you would still need a primary somewhere, but once you do, the gandi secondary one should automatically get all the changes you make to the primary one.

(i'm not affiliated with gandi or even a customer, only have seen them mentioned on /. as a decent provider)

Maybe Gandi?

https://www.gandi.net/hosting/

Gandi (https://www.gandi.net/hosting/proposal/price/) was widely recommended during rage-fest we had discussing the GoDaddy-supports-SOPA article discussion. There was one other with near-equal support whose name eludes me, if you care to go back and read that discussion. As I disclaimed before, I have no experience with any hosting companies (since the 1990s... rounds off to never).

Try Gandi. Their contract is written for clarity, and specifies in bold text on page 2 that "You are the owner of your domain name." The phrase "sole discretion" does not appear anywhere in the document. Do note that they sometimes add some terms and conditions specific to the type of extension you register (e.g. .com, .org, etc), so you'll want to double check those.

Their prices are middling; not the cheapest but not very pricey either. I've found the service excellent in the ten years I've been using them, and I've never once come across any kind of shenanigans story about them.

They're based in France, so any political crap which affects their service is likely to be French or EU based. And frankly, both France and the EU generally have saner laws than the U.S. when it comes to Internet stuff. (Generally! Not always.)

Try Gandi. Their contract is written for clarity, and specifies in bold text on page 2 that "You are the owner of your domain name." The phrase "sole discretion" does not appear anywhere in the document. Do note that they sometimes add some terms and conditions specific to the type of extension you register (e.g. .com, .org, etc), so you'll want to double check those.

Their prices are middling; not the cheapest but not very pricey either. I've found the service excellent in the ten years I've been using them, and I've never once come across any kind of shenanigans story about them.

They're based in France, so any political crap which affects their service is likely to be French or EU based. And frankly, both France and the EU generally have saner laws than the U.S. when it comes to Internet stuff. (Generally! Not always.)

Indeed. That's what I always say: "Free market" is the polar opposite of democracy.
It is the perfection of the law of the jungle.
Yes, primitive animals might work like that.
But we humans found out, that working together brings a huge evolutionary advantage.
If only me and some single other guy are left, fighting over the last piece of bread that has enough energy to allow only one of us to get to that spaceship, on a otherwise dead planet, then I can start thinking about beating him.

But in a business, in a OK country, every dollar I pay my employees, is a dollar they will spend on the economy, including me. Every client I treat nicely and don't betray or disappoint, will be a friend that's there for me. (Unless he's such a "free market" dick.)
And with the competition: Hey, if they actually make better products, they deserve to succeed. Not "win". Succeed. Since one succeeding doesn't mean the other must die off.

I guess what I want to say is: I want some people to make business with, that are not dicks, but that I can trust to treat others right, so that I can treat them right too, and know I'm not gonna be the idiot in the long run.

The only groups I found that offer anything like that, are:
- The Pirate Party - Simply because they dare to say that they are only humans, imperfect, biased, emotional, normal human beings, but with the same dreams that I have. (Not sure they'll survive intensive lobbying though. :/ But I'll say they will!)
- Those guys: http://en.gandi.net/no-bullshit
Honorable mentions:
- Fair Trade and similar efforts
- Frosta, Frozen fast food that doesn't disappoint when you open the pack, because they use actual normal ingredients you'd buy from a farmer too, instead of industrial crap. But I wish they would be a bit more open about how they treat their employees. (Not saying they treat them badly. Just saying that I don't have enough information to truly add them to the list.)
- Perhaps this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konosuke_Matsushita

Feel free to add yours to the list. (They should be friendly to their employees, clients and competitors, as far as you know.)

How about this instead: http://en.gandi.net/no-bullshit
This philosophy alone wins against any other business model, hands down.

Obvious viral advertisement is obvious.
Mod parent "Funny" or "Troll".

(Doesn't mean GoDaddy isn't shit. It means that I will not try Namecheap either. I'll try this: http://en.gandi.net/no-bullshit )

I just discovered Gandi.net in another Slashdot article, and they offer VPS. Does anyone have any experience with them?

I've been using Linode (transferred from Slicehost). Linode is fabulous, and Slicehost was great in its day but hasn't really been updated since Rackspace bought it. I'm curious how Gandi.net compares.

Gandi.net are a sizable international registrar i first heard of back during the last 'elephant sized' Godaddy debacle.

They support a load of projects like Debian and the EFF, along with charities like the International Federation of Human Rights and the WWF.

They cost a tiny bit more than Godaddy but it's a pittance given the manner with which they conduct themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandi

https://www.gandi.net/supports/

I woldn't hold your breath. Gandi has been saying that they will have dnssec for ages. It is getting pretty old at this point. Somehow they always find some other problem to tackle before rolling out the dnssec DS-registering code. ("First we have to revamp our core code before we can roll out this minor change to deal with dnssec.") At this point they have even stopped answering questions about status updates. Google "gandi dsnssec" to see the various discussions on their wiki and forums pages.

http://wiki.gandi.net/questions/en/domains/how-do-i-enable-dnssec

For domains you could try Gandi or Hover, both of which generally get high marks.
Gandi is a French company, so that should give some protection against trigger-happy US companies.

As for hosting there's certainly plenty to choose from, but I'm quite happy with WebFaction. It's even one of the few shared hosts that tells you how much memory you can use (upgradeable). As long as you don't intend to do reselling they're hard to go wrong with.
It's a UK company, but their servers are in Texas (at The Planet).

I've been very happy with gandi.net.

Seconded. I started using Gandi after reading recommendations here. Their slogan is actually "no bullshit."

Anyway, you remain in much better control if you keep your domain name registration separate from your host.

I have a VPS at Gandi.net and it's a thousand times better than being hosted by a company that controls your web site. Gandi is the best according to me (for just one reason: I can prepay and they do not store my credit card number) but I've also heard good things about Slicehost, prgmr, and Linode.

rackwire.com has unlimited data transfer for USD 22/month.

gandi.com has unlimited data transfer for EURO 12/month.

Virtualize.

Virtualize, but go one step further: get your virtual server hosted for you. For example Gandi is pretty sweet. I'm sure there must be similar services in the US. No more worries about that box running in the basement.

If you insist on having the hardware in your house, QNAP offers wonderful NAS boxes with Debian Lenny support.

Try gandi.net

I think GANDI have a good model. Their ethic is that they pretty much sell at cost. The service is great. I am just a customer, I'm not affiliated to them in any way.

Network Solutions have a long history of slightly bizarre business practices. Just because they're more expensive, the ultimate product (an entry in a DB that points to your DNS servers) is ridiculously cheap when you have big volume and decent automation. MarkMonitor add value by protecting you, maybe they're good. NetSol add marketing glitz value, but nothing good IMHO.

I recommend again Gandi. They have very good service, very good ethics (completely adds free) and an XML API for managing your account if you choose the reseller account (which you would want anyway with 50+ domains). They ask 12EUR/year for a .com domain. I already recommended them yesterday for their email offer which is free with your domains.

I recommend again Gandi. They have very good service, very good ethics (completely adds free) and an XML API for managing your account if you choose the reseller account (which you would want anyway with 50+ domains). They ask 12EUR/year for a .com domain. I already recommended them yesterday for their email offer which is free with your domains.

I second the motion on http://www.gandi.net/ . They handle my domains, DNS, and e-mail. https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ handles the few light webpages I want to serve. I set it all once and was able to forget about it because it's so trouble free,

Check Gandi.net. If you host your domain with them, you'll get 5 email boxes for free with 1Gb par box and IMAP access. They have a nice policy of not throwing a zillion adds at you, good ethics and have very good support. You'll also have the possibility to host a blog. This for the price of 12EUR per year!.

...and I'll boost the numbers.

When I last reviewed the Xen VPN farms out there I didn't find any with IPv6. It is on my short list of discriminators, not that I need it now, but I don't want to have to revisit the server to add it in the next couple of years when it is needed.

I should probably add that I don't want to pay more than $10/mo for the server either. I don't need much of a slice. I get by fine on a vpslink level-1 server, though gandi is about to claim my business. 4x the ram, twice the disk, same price.

I hope you mean .net. Given the current climate, I think a mortgage business would be the last ones I'd trust with registering any domains. :)

I've always heard good things about pairNIC and Gandi). I use NameCheap.

https://www.gandi.net/faq/view_question/313 What worries me about Gandi is that they don't offer auto renewing and the restore rates if it expires are pretty steep...

I would clearly recommend www.gandi.net as well. I have been using them for years exactly due to them declaring I am the owner of my domain and in charge of my domain, not them unlike most other registrars. The prices have increased over the last couple of years - they have been charging 12 Euro, which when I started clearly was among the best prices in the marked, but with the current strong Euro, you will be aware of the difference. The are now allowing payment in USD which is only $15/year now (thought the strong Euro would have cased higher dollar price). That said - I have used many registrars and I for one will select Gandi over the rest also for other reasons: I feel they are providing a much better overall experience than the rest. I once tried Godaddy as it was a bit cheaper than Gandi, and it seemed like a good provider... Not that I have ever had a problem such as this with them, but the services of Gandi are worth the difference for me, and Gandi do not spam me, or keep sending as much "renew your information" type messages and so on.

Some of the benefits I am using:

You are the owner of the domain name! : See https://www.gandi.net/contracts Section 1
Gandi includes DNS in its default service so you can edit directions of domains and sub domains without also paying for hosting!
Gandi allows you without hosting to have 5 mail boxes with 1GB mailbox space - again without paying additional for hosting!
Gandi also allow you to add wildcard mailbox aliasing og 1000 e-mail addresses, and may relay the mail to external mailboxes.

Gandi is supposed to be good (although I can't personally vouch for them): http://www.gandi.net/

I used Gandi before, they seemed decent to me.

Seconded. I've used Gandi for years for several domains and had no trouble.

I think their T&C states clearly that in their opinion YOU own the domain name. Whereas many registrars appear to say that THEY own the domain name and you get to use it as long as you pay.

That's exactly why I picked 'em.

So, what registrar doesn't suck?

Good domain registrars:

Gandi.net

DynDNS.org

Not the cheapest, but both are Good Folks(TM).

Thanks for that.

Since I've never had a need for service, I had no idea. The spam news is bad enough. Looks like I'll be switching to Gandi.

A pity. Joker's "utilitarian" site design filled me with an ironic confidence, like having security in some one who runs csh for a default shell. And it turns out they just don't care.

Gandi.net costs "12,00 Tax Excl. ie. 14,35 incl. tax". That is $15.63 today (2007-02-03), almost twice as expensive as the minimum.

Gandi is an excellent place to go. They aren't as cheap as GoDaddy, but they are a heck of a lot friendlier to deal with, and they allow you a lot of flexibility. They have a new XML API, and they support a lot of causes, including Debian.