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The site has been archived since 2008:

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

The domain was registered in 2007:

Domain Name: FREEMUSICARCHIVE.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D141981069-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.joker.com
Registrar URL: http://www.joker.com/
Updated Date: 2018-01-30T11:12:57Z
Creation Date: 2007-03-21T19:52:05Z

At least with Joker, mere mortals *can* qualify for the "reseller" prices, so 200 domains * $10 (at godaddy) == $2000 which is an effective increase to the equivalent of $3077 based on Joker's pricelist, lowering domain registration cost to effectively $7.80 each, thus "saving" $400/year...

(Yes, there are caveats, like needing to pre-pay)

Joker

Joker.com is $12/year with a list of free features.

I feel uncomfortable with the name. When someone chooses a poor name for a business, doesn't that indicate a low amount of business sophistication?

I've been extremely happy with joker.com. They're not the cheapest (if/when the US dollar makes gains on the Euro it might work out better), but they're reliable. I don't know what else to say, as I've been using them so long, and been so happy, that I haven't bothered to look elsewhere.

PharmaMaster starts another attack and takes down Tucows's DNS servers which were serving thousands of sites, including Blue Security's. Tucows terminates Blue Security's account in an attempt to stop the attack.
[May 3rd 23:23 GMT]
PharmaMaster Boasts Success

Tucows is a company I will never recommend or use to host any of my domains.
Caving in to a spammer/hacker retaliation will not garner much support.

http://www.joker.com/ serves my needs well

http://knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

...and I host my domains through http://www.joker.com/

I don't know. I like having access to foreign sites, even if they aren't in English. What if I'm an foreign expatriot living in America, desiring access to my country's news, or blogs in my native language? Ubuntu Linux for overseas folks? Or companies that want to market to the whole world, not just the US?

A partitioned Internet sounds like a bad idea to me.

From the InfoWorld article:

EBay has also been trying to shut down the Web site by working with the Internet registrar that was used to acquire the ebaychristmas.net domain, Pires said. Despite these efforts, however, the site has remained operational.

That registrar, which does business under the name Joker.com, has the power to shut down the scam Web site, Jennings said. "If they were taking their responsibilities seriously, the site would have been shut down weeks ago," he said.

Last time I checked, the Registrar wasn't responsible if a server that happened to be pointed to by a record on a DNS server is registered as primary for one of the domains that they registered contained fraudulent or misleading content. In fact, checking Joker's TOS, while Joker may have the "power" to shut him down, I don't immediately see that they have any legal right to do so.

Namecheap seems quite good. I like their site layout a lot. Everything makes sense and is easy to do... and if for some reason you're confused, they even have tutorials available. They also offer WhoisGuard, which anonymizes your contact information through a remailer. This means people can still contact you if there's a problem with a domain, but they don't automatically get your real name, address, and email.

They're also, as their name implies, quite cheap. $8.88/yr for domains, and another $5/year or so for WhoisGuard, if you want that. They offer many free services as well, like domain website redirection and good DNS management.

I haven't seen them do anything even REMOTELY duplicitous or sneaky.

Joker.com was my prior registrar. They are also good, completely non-sneaky, and inexpensive. They probably cost a little more than Namecheap does now, because of the decline in the U.S. dollar. I switched because Joker had nothing like WhoisGuard at the time. (I don't know if they do now or not.) I'm happy with Namecheap, but I'd use Joker again anytime.

I believe Namecheap is an eNom reseller, so they are a relatively small outfit, without the infrastructure of 'real' domain registrars, like Joker. The Namecheap site is better-designed and much easier to navigate, and they have a few features Joker doesn't. Joker can be downright cryptic at times. Everything works and does what it should, but the interface is 'early Linux desktop'... clunky and strangely laid out. Namecheap is extremely polished in comparison. That said, I've seen Namecheap's web redirects get squirrely a couple of times.

I used Network Solutions for many years, as well. They have a good interface and extremely robust infrastructure, but they're expensive. They're also complete bastards, and try to upsell you in unscrupulous ways. I suggest avoiding them. GoDaddy is another very bad outfit. And their CEO advocates torture. (he thinks we're not hard enough in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib). I suggest never, never using them.

On the whole, if you're running a small to medium site, Namecheap may be one of your best choices. If you're running a big setup, particularly if the registrar is redirecting your website or hosting your DNS, you'd probably be better off with Joker's superior infrastructure.

Register your own domain with a registrar that provides email forwarding. Then you have email portability. Change your ISP and all you have to do is change your forward record. Joker is the one I use, but you can choose your own.

try joker.com. Good prices. No ads. No nonsense. All domains "domain locked" per default.

Don't know about price in comparison to GoDaddy, but Joker is provided good service to me, with no ads.

I have strong recommendations for Joker. I know a lot of this comes standard with a lot of places, but lemme list the talking points: Cheap ($~12), good support, free nameservers, easy administration interface, and if you use their nameservers they'll let you use their MX forwarding, and if you do, you can use their spam filters. I have a lot of clients who have never heard of a DNS entry much less the process for domain administration, and none of them has ever had issue with using their site to create and use an account.

I suppose my one catch is, they seem to be somewhat Euro-centric (this, of course coming from my US-centric mind), so some of my new users are confused by if they need to pay VAT, or why some of the transfer processes are bound by German (I think) telecom laws designed to protect the consumer (e.g., for one action on a domain, you used to be required to sign a form and fax it to them). It works out well, though, since they protect the user from any sort of fudgery as mentioned above.. like five day steals.

Joker.com is my registrar and they emailed me 3 days ago about the changes, and declared all domains under their service were auto-locked by default!

I had no idea about the regulations until they emailed me first. First they helped me transfer my domain away from a bad registrar, now they help me through new regulations without me lifting a finger.

Buyer beware of other services, but that's why you sign up with a reliable service with good references! :) Now if only I could get this kind of service from my credit card.

Joker.com. Been with them for years. Nice place, and cheap.

I don't think I've seen anyone post this yet or not, but ICANN maintains a list of all accredited registars. You may be surprised how many there are. It also lists which TLDs each one can register for you.

Naturally, some are probably much better than others. I'd recommend godaddy.com, gandi.net, or joker.com.

Additionally, if do not want your contact information to be public, you can use DomainsByProxy.com. You register through a registrar that's one of DBP's affiliates and pay an extra $15/year or so and they act as a proxy for the domain contact. They list their postal and email addresses for your domain, and forward you anything that is sent, optionally filtering for spam. You still own the domain name, and the default if anything comes up (i.e. they suspect you of spamming or something) is that the registration information reverts to your own true contact information... So it's kind of "fail-safe" in that respect.

I don't know what kind of extra services they offer; I've never needed any.

you actually buy domains from verislime? try joker.com

[register.com] told me 'Somehow your zone file got corrupted, you have to realize that .us domains are a new thing and it's not going smoothly for many people.'

Maybe what the should have said is "a new thing for us". I remember several years ago registering a .us back when it was run by someone competent. Once VeriSign/NSI took it over, I knew there'd be problems. I moved across the country after this took place, tried to register a new .us domain using the same application I'd used, substituting for the new state and locality, and was rejected because they couldn't read plain English. They suggested some assinine, misspelled name which was only tangentially related to what I'd requested, even though the domain I was requesting was available.

I can't imagine that things have gotten any better since then, even with a new company handling .us registrations. Since I was rejected, I've gone with a .org domain through joker, and haven't looked back since.

In their attempt to monopolize as much domain registration as possible, VeriSign/NSI has managed to cause a lot more damage for .us than there have been benefits.

I hope everyone also knows that you can get domains from Joker.com for dirt cheap.

In fact, according to their pricing guide, you can register any of the big three (com,net,org) for 12 Euros.

Conversion rate for the Euro according to joker.com is about .85E to the $1USD. Right now it looks like it's about .91. So, that's $11/year.

Plus it says you can use some nameserver they have for free. I don't know the quality of it, but...

~Wx

I hope everyone also knows that you can get domains from Joker.com for dirt cheap.

In fact, according to their pricing guide, you can register any of the big three (com,net,org) for 12 Euros.

Conversion rate for the Euro according to joker.com is about .85E to the $1USD. Right now it looks like it's about .91. So, that's $11/year.

Plus it says you can use some nameserver they have for free. I don't know the quality of it, but...

~Wx

Joker is an excellent registrar. They charge 12 Euros per year, they have good service, they never spam you...

I have had good dealings with joker.

i've been using Joker as my sole registrar for the past 2 years. Super cheap, free dns, easy interface, good service. Only minus would be the sometimes awkward translated website / documents (they are a german registrar)....

In theory, com/net/org/edu/info/biz are generic TLDs not reserved for the US or any other country. There are .com registrars in other countries. As far as I know, .gov and .mil are reserved for the US government and military, and .int is only for organizations established by international treaty.

Why does the US get its own Top Level Domain? We do; .us is it. It's a country code TLD just like .fr or .au, and each country is free to subdivide however they please.

--

Personally, I'd want to have ".deb"... :-)

Actually, there ARE a few fairly inexpensive registrars out there, such as Joker and Gandi.net. Both are only 12 Euros/year, which at today's exchange rate is about $10-$11 US. I've had some fairly good experience with Joker, others have with Gandi. It just depends if you want to use a German or a French registrar (if that matters to you). Both have most/all of their pages in english, so for the great unwashed ignorant masses in the US (myself included), it's painless.

But I really think it would be great if the free/opensource OSes got together and formed their own root nameservers. All the cool TLDs, like .nym (one of my personal favorites) could then be made available as well. And if enough sites support alternate roots by default, then for the majority of folks, it would be completely transparent. It might even make VeriSign/NSI sit up and take notice. Not that I'll be holding my breath for THAT to happen.

But given the success of these OSes/philosophies in general, even really cheap (read $5/year or so) costs, coupled with a more intelligent name policy, would hopefully make great inroads...

--

Aside from the somewhat confusing (to someone like my gf who doesn't know anything at all about DNS, yet registered a domain) web pages, I've been fairly happy with Joker, which is also 12 Euros a year. I should probably compare them to gandi.net, since I have an easier (read any chance) of understand untranslated French than I do German (and some of Joker's pages never got translated the last time I was there).

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From the article:
The proposed registration fee, $75, is much higher than the fees proposed by the other winning sites, which average about $5.

The average is hella higher than $5. .BIZ alone is charging $2000 (see Wired), so even if the other six were all free, the average would still be almost $300.

Kind of ridiculous when so many registrars are reg'ing the big three TLDs (.com/.net/.org) for $10 and less per year. Joker.com's down to around $9, $8 in bulk, on what I think is a $6 fixed cost they pay. So much for competition of other TLDs driving down prices. I doubt anybody who shells $50,000 per TLD (non-refundable) application fee with a 3% chance of approval (7 out of 210+ TLDs were approved) for a niche market is going to charge $8.

Gads...I just realized ICANN took in $11 million on the initial appliciations...and they're trying to revoke country domains for impoverished and unrepresented nations like Haiti and Brazzaville if they don't pony up?

I think the corinthians.com example should have woken people up to the problems domains face. I own a domain. I use it to host e-mail for me and my friends and also to provide them with a DNS record if they want to publish a website. I use a CORE partner, Joker, to register my domain for $12 / year. Now I think my domain is somewhat catchy and I could see where someone out with a web startup thinking my domain name would be great for their site. So they go trademark and then sue me for rights to it?? Heck, I'd probably sell them the domain name for next to nothing if they'd just ask! But what I wonder is are these arbitration sites going to consider my small usage of the domain on par with a startup company or does the fact that the startup would generate revenue and I don't make them give it to the startup that wants it? I'm just curious here. I'm not that attached to my domain, but I certainly don't want it ripped from my possession simply because someone else wants it and I have it.

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The interface is not the best but once you get past that they are great.

Really, who cares whether AOL has created an influx of Newbies in the last decade or so. Let them have their "private community" with their cute, proprietary browser. Let them solicit one-another for purposes childish and wanking. Let them soil themselves, catching the excretia in the trunk or caboose of their matching day-glo outfits while strolling hand-in-hand with one another at the local Mall.

Why? Because, unless I am in close contact with these people, I should not be bothered with their superfluosity and worthlessness. If they so choose to educate themselves and change their ISP, I would readily welcome them with open and loving arms.

With regards to NSI, fuck 'em, I have nothing nice to say... Except this.

First, a word about register.com. You may want to read through the DNSO archives, the IFWP list, and the DOMAIN-POLICY archives to see what register.com has been up to, particularly regarding the single-letter domains.

You may also want to have a look at their registration agreement, particularly the bit on information ownership. They own all your contact information, and can do whatever they want with it.

Note the section in 6d above where they explicitly say you give them the right to use your information for targeted marketing.

Others aren't any better. BulkRegister has been phone-spamming people with completely automated unsolicited phone calls, in violation of US State and Federal law.

Joker.com and the other current and past CORE registrars have had significant problems in the past, and CORE is losing registrars right and left.

Most of the registrars have had significant and in some cases highly-publicised problems interacting using the SRS -- the Shared Registry System, resulting in things like aol.com's ownership being transferred to an individual (and later changed back), and other domain names not owned by big companies not being so lucky in having their ownership info corrected.

There's a problem with CORE registrars as well...several years ago, when people were once again trying to get new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), CORE managed to have a set of 7 TLD agreed upon. CORE registrars were pre-selling registrations in these 7 TLDs last year. They've now stopped, but should those & go active, it's still unknown whether or not anyone will have a fair shot at registering within them due to these pre-sells.

I'd personally recommend becoming a member of the OpenSRS project, and being your own registrar.

If you can't or won't do that, then do the following: Find and take the time to READ each registrar's Domain Dispute Policy and Registration Agreement, and think of what it means to you if your domain name ownership is challenged. The challenges are mushrooming, and all signs point to corporations getting whatever they want. Go see the resolved UDRP cases to get a feeling for how the wind is currently blowing.

The only drawback I have found is that CORENic doesn't really seem to telly uo how to claim ownership over the DNS servers people have entered into joker and gotten handles for. As a result, my ISP doesn't get notification when I buy a domain. Does anyone know how to fix this?

You bet I know where my domain is -- it's registered with Joker.com instead of that shady NSI outfit. $36 for two years and the knowledge that when I want changes made they actually get made in a reasonable time frame (*gasp*).

I know this sounds like spam, but I people need to stop bitching about NSI and start taking their business elsewhere (now that we finally have alternatives).

Nate uses his .sig to advertise his company. I use this post to point out that much cheaper domain registration can be achieved at http://www.joker.com.

Domain Name Registration: $16 per year.

You can get Internet Domains for much cheaper from your competition (funny you don't mention them).

Try joker.com for $16/year domain names. https://joker.com/domain/index.html?lang=EN

Other companies offer domains as low as $13/year in bulk.

Stop trying to tells us that $45 is a good price. It's shit!

Internic charges $35/year (US funds) Joker (CORE reseller) charges ~$16/year (US funds) That becomes a much smaller drop in the bucket.

Well, there already is some real competition for NS. For example Joker.com offers domain registration at a much lower price than NS. So does TotalNIC (they're the one I'm using, and they're about $30 for 2 years). The service is great, and I haven't had any problems.

The contact change went through two days ago, but the whois still hasn't been updated.

With joker.com, my whois record was updated in 10 minutes (literally) and the server was up under the new DNS in less than 24 hours. If you take a look at yi.org, you'll find out that NSI requires all changes to be approved by a person. What crack are they on?

simple, cheap, private, and they DO do dns.. network "solutions" needs a problem.. hire the joker

Considering their prices (DM80/USD$40 for the first 2 years) they are a no-frills provider, so you'll have to take care of the DNS hosting, etc, yourself.

however, at least I don't have to worry about my information being 'owned' by NIC.

Anyway, for .com, .net, or .org, I say go with joker.com.

Register.com was the first. Joker.com is currently the cheapest (it's based in Germany but its English webpages are passable).

Jamie McCarthy