Dyn.com Ends Free Dynamic DNS

First time accepted submitter mkitchin (1285710) writes in with news about Dyn ending its free DNS service. "For the last 15 years, all of us at Dyn have taken pride in offering a free version of our Dynamic DNS Pro product. What was originally a product built for a small group of users has blossomed into an exciting technology used around the world. That is why with mixed emotions we announced the end of that free hostname program today, officially turning down on May 7th."

Comments

You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then sign me up for a pay service! I love being canceled on!

Re:You cancel service?

[bobbied]

I smell a business opportunity... Or, perhaps not.

Having used Dyndns for nearly a decade, I'm sad to see it go pay only. Can't say I'm surprised. I figured this was on the way when they went to this - you have to log in each month or we delete your two free host names - that they where just trying to get us all to pay. Problem is, I really cannot see paying $25/year for the services they provide.

Re:You cancel service?

[YukariHirai]

I'm also sad to see it go pay only, and have been using it for quite some years. But I figure... well, considering how much I spend on everything else technology and internet, $25 a year isn't going to kill me.

Re:You cancel service?

[gl4ss]

yeah but at 25 bucks / year you might just as well get something real...

Re:You cancel service?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Eh, They cancelled my account years ago after my router screwed up and started sending them updates to them as fast as it could. They thought it was a DOS attempt or something. It was really just my US Robotics DSL modem telling me it wanted to be set on fire and then smashed into small pieces. But, I understood their decision.

Re:You cancel service?

[spire3661]

$25/year gives you 32 changeable names.

Re:You cancel service?

[x_t0ken_407]

It was really just my US Robotics DSL modem telling me it wanted to be set on fire and then smashed into small pieces.

Lol!!!

In my case, I've been using them for the better part of the past 5 years...like others, I knew the writing was on the wall when they started that login crap. I've in fact only used them sparingly in any case, as some time ago I just began using a domain name I'd purchased and my own DNS server. Not surprised they're finally taking the free offering away.

Re:You cancel service?

[Redmancometh]

I used them a very long time ago, and recently tried to use them for a project. I ended up just using records from one of my domains, and using a little magic to compensate for the dynamic IP.

My observation was that they've made it harder and harder to actually set up the free service. Every click involved trying to sell me something. It was as bad or worse about "upselling" than godaddy.

Re:You cancel service?

[Slartibartfast]

I'm replying because I modded the parent wrong, and this is the only way I know to delete a mod. I'm sorry!

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

For $8-12/year you can get a domain from godaddy or namecheap, both of which offer a similar service for your own domain for that price

Re:You cancel service?

[ncc74656]

If you had donated at some point in the past, it looks like you get grandfathered in. From the email they sent me:

In an effort to better service our customers through increased support and a cleaner network, Dyn announced that in the next 30 days, we will no longer be supporting free hostnames. However, because you believed in us and supported this company through your donations, we are continuing to fulfill our promise to you: your service is still free for life.

I donated somewhere around $10-$20 once, probably at least a decade ago.

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for you and them then.

Since I didn't give them a single cent I have difficulty feeling any outrage or even mild anger with them cancelling service to cheapskates like me. They should be more annoyed with parasites like me - it's not like one of those services where they can try to make money from ads.

Re:You cancel service?

[augahyde]

yeah but at 25 bucks / year you might just as well get something real...

What is something real? A permanent IP address, i.e. business class service, costs far more than $25. I just checked with Comcast recently and it started around $60 per month. And if you want cable TV, you cannot have DVR with business class service.

Re:You cancel service?

[Guspaz]

And my .com/.net/.org domain (that costs less than $25/year) gets me an infinite number of changeable names. I simply set the TTL on the subdomains low and update it whenever the IPs change.

Re:You cancel service?

[houstonbofh]

I thought it went away years ago! I tried to sign up, and eventually went to no-ip... I still use them for free, but several clients I have referred have paid. Dyn lost that business...

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh...for $35/mo, EasyDNS will give you domain registration, full DNS hosting and as many dynamic domains as you want. Oh, and they have a history of choosing to do the right thing rather than the easy thing.

Disclaimer: I'm not associated with EasyDNS, but I've been a happy customer for the past decade.

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

No-IP is a great free dynamic DNS alternative http://noip.co/1jVi5th

Re:You cancel service?

[MrDiablerie]

I remember donating something like $20-30 back in 2001. I still use the service in 2014.

Re:You cancel service?

[hodet]

I have a small VPS that hosts a personal website. My home Linux box just does an http get with curl to a secret html file on the VPS webserver. Then I generate an html file every hour that reads the access_log and uses a script to genereate a web page that displays my home IP I can access. Has worked fine for me for quite some time. My IP rarely changes and I can just update my hostfile if I don't want to use my IP directly.

There are probably more elegant solutions but since I am the only one using it it's fine and I can't justify paying anything when I already have a perfectly good VPS I can leverage.

Re:You cancel service?

[hodet]

Nice writing, holy crap. I meant;

Then I use a script to read the access_log and generate a web page with my home IP every hour.

Re:You cancel service?

[Clith]

My static IP costs me $4/month at TekSavvy on top of my regular ISP charges.

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

herego:

cat > /var/www/cgi-bin/dyndns.cgi
#! /bin/sh
[ -z "$QUERY_STRING" ] && printf "Content-type: text/plain\n\n`cat /var/remoteip`\n" || echo $QUERY_STRING > /var/remoteip
^D
touch /var/remoteip && chmod +x /var/www/cgi-bin/dyndns.cgi && chown webuser:webgroup /var/www/cgi-bin/dyndns.cgi /var/remoteip

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, I think I donated a few bucks to them many years ago. I got an email today saying I was grandfathered in. Too bad I don't use the free domains anymore.

Re:You cancel service?

[Entropy98]

Comcast IPs only change every 6 months - 1 yr+ as it is.

Re:You cancel service?

[Krojack]

So either $48/year for a static IP or $25/year for dyn.com.... I guess it comes down to what you're using it for and how much you really are willing to spend.

Re:You cancel service?

[dysmal]

Godaddy... Godaddy... Hrmmm.. Weren't they in the news for something internet related?

http://godaddyboycott.org/

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/12/29/2053252/wikipedia-to-dump-godaddy-over-sopa

Re:You cancel service?

[kcwebmonkey]

I switched over to http://freedns.afraid.org/ after they started requiring you to log in monthly and haven't looked back since.

Re:You cancel service?

[kcwebmonkey]

No-IP is a great free dynamic DNS alternative http://noip.co/1jVi5th

their free service also requires you to sign in every month. I'd suggest a service like http://freedns.afraid.org/ which is completely free and doesn't require monthly logins to keep your account active.

Re:You cancel service?

[thesupraman]

are you *really* trying to compare a service at $25/year with a service at $35/month?

I think you have missed an important part of the comparison..

Re:You cancel service?

[YukariHirai]

Meh, I've spent more on things that are less real and ultimately less useful. At the bottom line, this is a service they are providing. Not all services - very few if any, in fact - result in your gaining a physical object.

Re:You cancel service?

[augahyde]

Unfortunately, they are Canada only. Given that Comcast is the largest ISP in the US, they are a relevant source for me to point to. Business Class service is the only way to get a static IP address with Comcast and that starts at USD 69.95 per month plus another USD 14.95 per month for the static IP address.

Re:You cancel service?

[kko]

I once foolishly paid dyndns for some sort of very long term (lifetime? I cannot remember) dyndns account. That service went away, and I got left with just their free tier of service. Then they started with the "you must log in every x amount of time" thing. At this point, I got DNS subdomains on shtuff running in DigitalOcean, and it makes not a lot of sense to run things at home.

tl;dr At this point in my life I don't even need dyndns. But thanks for all the fish, at the same time, dyndns.

Re:You cancel service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but I only need one, and even that I don't actually use frequently, so it isn't worth it for me.

Re:You cancel service?

[KritonK]

This happened to me once, too. I wrote to them, explaining what had happened, and they promptly restored my account, no questions asked.

Re:You cancel service?

[bemymonkey]

Meh, it was the same for me. I just switched to one of the many other free services that're just as good... I don't understand why Dyn think that they're going to be able to charge money for what everyone else offers for free :S

Alternatives

[Chrisq]

A quick search reveals http://www.noip.com/, and I'm sure they'll be more. Anyway isn't this supposed to be a stopgap before IPV6 means we can all have permanent static IPS?!

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Permanent static IPs sound like a privacy nightmare, anyway.

Re:Alternatives

[Chrisq]

Permanent static IPs sound like a privacy nightmare, anyway.

but think of the time it will save the NSA

Re:Alternatives

[rahvin112]

Considering Dyn bought several promised "free for life" DNS services then promptly killed them you need to realize they'll probably do it again. They've apparently decided the best business model is buy out their free competitors and put them out business.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

IPV6 even uses your MAC address to generate an address, so thoughtful.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I've noticed that too and it kind of irks me.

Re:Alternatives

[BenFranske]

I know it's not very slashdot-like to do some research before posting but if you're not familiar with IPv6 please do yourself a favor and check it out thoroughly before spreading FUD. Yes, IPs are (most frequently) tied to MAC addresses _BUT_ you almost always will have 3 IPv6 addresses... a link-local address for communication just on the local subnet, a globally public one tied to your MAC (which you can distribute to people who you WANT to reach you), and a global public "temporary" IP address which you can use for outgoing connections but which will change periodically and will not be tied to your MAC. Of course this all depends a little on your IPv6 stack in your OS but this is how it's typically being handled.

Re:Alternatives

[TheRaven64]

That was fixed, what, five years ago? Please find a new troll.

Re:Alternatives

[benjfowler]

For link-local addresses, which only work on your LAN. This obviates the need for ARP (there is no ARP in IPv6).

For any service which requires access to the outside world, you'll get a routable IP over (say) DHCP.

Re:Alternatives

[santiagoanders]

They already have your MAC address anyway if you are sending packets to them. The address is only valid on the link.

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

Re:Alternatives

[TheRaven64]

Most ISPs don't change your IP on a regular basis anyway, so IP-based tracking narrows you down to a residential connection already. IPv6 is actually better in this regard because most implementation (yes, including Windows) let you keep a single static IP (or more than one) that you use for publicly advertised services but then regularly cycle IPs for outbound connections. This is something that most network stacks let you tune, but at the extreme case you can use a new IP for every new outbound connection (I think the default is a new one every 2 hours for most systems). This doesn't help much if you're the only user on a residential connection, but it makes tracking a lot harder if that's on something like a university campus.

Re:Alternatives

[psychonaut]

With No-IP's free service, host names expire every 30 days. I imagine this will be rather inconvenient for many people, even if all that's required to prevent the expiry is to log into your account (as Dyn.com has required for the past year or so).

Re:Alternatives

[g1zmo]

That's exactly what they did to the service that I used (and made fair donations to annually) for years: everydns.net.

Re:Alternatives

[radiumsoup]

so you're saying someone could take the vacuum of service this opportunity generates to make a free dynamic DNS service, and once it hits a certain subscriber number, sell it to Dyn.com, then rinse, repeat?

Sounds like a plan.

Re:Alternatives

[Enfixed]

Been using No-IP for years, love those guys!

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a plan.

That was my first thought too.

1) Start free DNS service.
2) Build up business.
3) Sellout to dyn.com.
4) Profit!
5) Goto step 1.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why don't you change your MAC address on a regular basis.

Re:Alternatives

[rahvin112]

Yea welcome to the club, there are 700K of us.

Re:Alternatives

[war4peace]

I already had an alternative for years: my ISP. It has this free service where you login with your account, and pick [chosenname].go.ro - and that's it. Of course, some might consider it as rather limited but I think its more than fitting for a home user.

Re:Alternatives

[Curunir_wolf]

Considering Dyn bought several promised "free for life" DNS services then promptly killed them you need to realize they'll probably do it again. They've apparently decided the best business model is buy out their free competitors and put them out business.

I'm one of those that got an account when they bought out EveryDNS. They committed to keeping it free for life (but charged $5 for the "transition").

I'm actually a little confused by this announcement. I got an email from them this morning about it, but very little information. They included this in mine:

However, because you believed in us and supported this company through your donations, we are continuing to fulfill our promise to you: your service is still free for life.

Not sure what this means for me. I do have what I think they are referring to, a free hostname in the "from-va.com" domain. I don't really use it much, so I don't care if it goes away. But I've also got 2 of my own domains that I use their DNS services for. I'm assuming that will continue to work, and for no new fees. I better be right, or I'll be raising some hell.

Re:Alternatives

[fulldecent]

So... I've just come up with an awesome idea for a business model...

Re:Alternatives

[jittles]

A quick search reveals http://www.noip.com/, and I'm sure they'll be more. Anyway isn't this supposed to be a stopgap before IPV6 means we can all have permanent static IPS?!

I've been using ZoneEdit for a long time. They've changed their business model slightly. Don't know if they still offer as many free options any more, but they have been great for me for over 10 years now!

Re:Alternatives

[GodfatherofSoul]

Not sure what ISP you're using, but I haven't had one in the past 5 years or so that recycled my IP. Even over long down times (up to a day or two as I recall), the IP I was reissued was still the same.

Re:Alternatives

[Gr8Apes]

MAC addresses are changeable. Thanks to Digital for forcing that option, IIRC :)

Re:Alternatives

[Midnight Thunder]

They are by default, but there is the IPv6 privacy extension RFC4941. Also if you use DHCPv6, then you can decide exactly what IP each host gets.

Re:Alternatives

[augahyde]

Are you sure that your provider will offer static IP addressing? This is one way to distinguish residential from business users. Comcast has already stated that they will support both dynamic and static (for a fee, I'm sure) IPv6 addresses.

Re:Alternatives

[houstonbofh]

Just host your ready-to-sell dynamic DNS service on AWS, and you can bring up new ones the day you sell the old one. :)

Re:Alternatives

[houstonbofh]

Me too... Ever since Dyn made it too hard to use them. Frankly, it was so hard to find that I thought the free service was already gone.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you use IPv4. Or you change your IPv6 address.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a happy ZE customer too. While they are not free, what they do charge is a very reasonably one time fee.

$25 a year is a bit much.

Re:Alternatives

[Mirar]

This. I'm confused as well. And I never knew about their "free hostname" stuff.

Re:Alternatives

[SeaFox]

Anyway isn't this supposed to be a stopgap before IPV6 means we can all have permanent static IPS?!

You think your ISP is going to give you static IPs for free just because they have an IPv6 pool to dive into? Chances are it will still be DHCP and rotate occasionally. And the fee an ISP charges for static IP is more per year than paying for a dynamic DNS service.

Re:Alternatives

[SeaFox]

With No-IP's free service, host names expire every 30 days.

They only expire if you're too lazy to visit their website for three minutes to do a captcha when they send you the email saying your domain is about to expire. I've been doing it for months and have had uninterrupted service.

Re:Alternatives

[nmb3000]

A quick search reveals http://www.noip.com/ [noip.com], and I'm sure they'll be more

No-IP is dishonest and doesn't deserve your support.

Way back in mid 2004 I spent about $20 to buy No-IP's "Lifetime" dynamic DNS service which gave me (IIRC) 5 of their "enhanced" subdomains which would never expire and never cost me additional money. I was very happy with them and recommended them to several people.

Then suddenly in 2008 I got an email saying my service was about to expire. When I emailed them about it, they said:

Date: Mar 10, 2008 (1:18am PDT)
From: No-IP Support

3 months after you had completed this purchase, this service was changed to a yearly service. As a courtesy to existing users, we provided them with 3 years of service. I'm sorry for any confusion this caused with the renewal of your service.

I don't really care what sneaky leagalese was in their TOS that justifies them legally. They explicitly sold this service as "lifetime", and I feel this was a completely underhanded move. I've had nothing to do with No-IP ever since and I discourage everyone else from supporting that kind of dishonestly.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

reallly?
you don't think that there would be a non-compete clause included with the terms of sale for "service #1" ?

Re:Alternatives

[sexconker]

They already have your MAC address anyway if you are sending packets to them. The address is only valid on the link.

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

They have my cable modem's MAC address.
And if my cable modem sends out my router's MAC address, they have whatever MAC address I want to send out.
Many routers let you specify a specific MAC, and many that don't let you clone the MAC of the first device connected behind it, which itself is often configurable via the driver or the BIOS/EFI.

Re:Alternatives

[PlusFiveTroll]

>You think your ISP is going to give you static IPs for free just because they have an IPv6 pool to dive into?

Probably actually. It's way easier to manage that way. It also solves tons of problems. Assign a /64 /60 or /something small to a customer and if 'they' fuck it up it doesn't effect all the other users. They probably won't be static in the way you think they are, but tied to the MAC of the CPE.

Re:Alternatives

[udippel]

Wrong. Only if no client contacts their servers.
And I did that for almost 2 years until I got a client installed to update the zone file regularly, and now this requirement is gone.

Re:Alternatives

[Cramer]

It's not called ARP, but it does have the same mechanism... Neighbor Discovery. It's done via multicast, btw.

Re:Alternatives

[ultranova]

Probably actually. It's way easier to manage that way. It also solves tons of problems.

The problem is... that's also true of all always-on connections. The whole reason we got dynamic IPs in the first place is that a 300-line ISP only needed one IP per line, not one per customer. But an always-on broadband customer needs one IP per computer, and the only question is whether they're public or behind a NAT. IPv6 removes the need for NAT, but does not solve the "need" for a dynamic IP for a broadband customer since there never was one in the first place, except for greed. And, sadly, technology can't solve greed.

Re:Alternatives

[Cramer]

No, you will not have "permanent static [addresses]". Your IPv6 prefix will not be "yours"; it can (and very likely WILL) be just as dynamic as any IPv4 address today. (esp. since every US ISP I'm aware of is using DHCPv6-PD to hand out prefixes)

Re:Alternatives

[ultranova]

I don't really care what sneaky leagalese was in their TOS that justifies them legally.

What makes you think anything does? They marketed a lifetime service; while it's obvious that no one and nothing can guarantee it's going to live longer than you, it seems that No-IP is still around, so why not take them to small-claims court and demand your money back?

They explicitly sold this service as "lifetime", and I feel this was a completely underhanded move.

And it is. So, even if the TOS actually does legalize this kind of thing, it's entirely possible that you might get yours back by pointing out this fraudulent advertising. Perhaps you could see if you can get a class-action lawsuit going - you can't be the only victim?

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

No different than dyndns.org. They implemented a 30day renewal or your account dies about a year ago. And it isn't cool.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone can shut down your own domain name on a whim, and good registrars give you this measly dynamic update feature as a free bonus.

Rent a domain for $12/yr you cheap fucks.

Re:Alternatives

[alexo]

How do I I use the noip service to manage hosts in my domain, where the domain DNS is not managed by noip?

Let's say that the DNS server for mydomain.example is my registrar, who does not support dynamic DNS
and I want mycomputer.mydomain.example to be dynamically managed by noip.

I could not find this option on noip's web site.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

They also only expire if your IP doesn't change. I have some dynamic IPs that often keep the same addresses for a few months, so I have a cron job that runs every month to tell no-ip that my address has changed to some made up value, and then update it a few seconds later with the old value again. No more wasting 30 seconds of my life to click a website link!

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Domains are registered to static IPs, what these services do is map a permanent domain name to a dynamic IP. As a service they often times provide you with a free subdomain of their server to use.

Re:Alternatives

[WhatAreYouDoingHere]

I looked at noip ... and eventually settled on dynu.com today after getting dyndns' email. Actually I looked at a little comparison article here http://www.gnutomorrow.com/bes...

Re:Alternatives

[LihTox]

I already had an alternative for years: my ISP. It has this free service where you login with your account, and pick [chosenname].go.ro - and that's it. Of course, some might consider it as rather limited but I think its more than fitting for a home user.

This really is the sort of service all ISPs should provide.

Re:Alternatives

[unixisc]

In IPv6, the minimum you'd get is a /64, in which case, you can define how many of those 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses are static, how many dynamic and so on. Comcast wouldn't get any say in that, unless they got to manage your addresses. Besides, residential users who'd like to have a website and so on could easily make one or more of those addresses static, and use it to host various services.

Re:Alternatives

[unixisc]

One can get a prefix directly from ARIN. There is this concept now of provider-independent addresses, where an organization can get a fixed prefix permanently allotted to them. Once they have that, they'll have all the IP addresses they'd ever need. Only thing they need to solve - how to get different locations w/ maybe different ISPs working w/ that single range of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the sale contract to DynDNS would prevent you doing that.

Re:Alternatives

[qubezz]

Most don't change your IP address capriciously, but some do. Some ISPs, such as Centurylink DSL (Qwest) aggressively change IP with every DHCP renew or PPPoE session, specifically to frustrate users into paying more for a static IP address to run any kind of service that expects that a response should return to the same IP address a few minutes later.

This particular scumbag company has also tried to ace out other DSL Internet providers by limiting them to 7mbps while selling their own ISP service at 20mbps+.

Re:Alternatives

[ciscoguy01]

I also donated to everydns.net, and I used them for years.
Then Dyn bought them, made a big show of keeping the everydns promise to us. "It'll always be free".
Then they asked for money, I think it was $10, which I paid.

I have them on a few domains, and they have kept my free acct active after I paid them.
The token payment was to separate the slackers from those that were willing to pay at least a little, which meant you were still actually using the service.
I am sure it wasn't the money.

Dyn does have a history of buying their free competitors. To get rid of them.
One thing about them, they are not nice guys. Not at all.

Re:Alternatives

[Cramer]

And how does this matter at all to the millions of residential users? You, know, the people who don't get static addresses.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.dnsdynamic.org/ "DNSdynamic will always be absolutely free."

Re:Alternatives

[Kalriath]

Lots of services have claimed that over history. A certain PHP bulletin board that now costs $199 with $40/yr renewals, Reflector .NET Decompiler (now $95, plus extra for every version or $199 for the "Pro" version), etc.

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

So what about people whom I want to reach me, but whom I don't want to know the exact device I'm using?

Viable Replacement?

[krept]

Anyone have a recommended replacement service?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[c4t3l]

afraid.org?? They are decent.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Rinisari]

Since my primary usage of their service is to access my array of routers at networks I control, I plan on using one of these alternatives if DNSimple, where I have a paid account, doesn't implement dyndns support in the next 30 days:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/ind...

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

dyndns.org
freedns.afraid.org
no-ip.com
zoneedit.com
3322.org
easydns.com
tzo.com
dynsip.org

They are all pretty much the same as far as I care.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[elerran]

Been very happy with https://freedns.afraid.org/ ever since dyndns deleted my free domain because I didn't login to their website once a month.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just switched from dyndns to afraid.com.
Fairly pain free, with the exception of having to update my ddclient to the latest version, and then running into a bug in ddclient (the freedns protocol handler in ddclient v3.8.2 must have username in all lowercase).

Re:Viable Replacement?

[MightyYar]

I've been happy with ChangeIP for several years now, ever since Dyn started their pushy shenanigans.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[robmv]

dyndns.org

Recursion found!

Re:Viable Replacement?

[R.Mo_Robert]

dyndns.org

dyndns.org is dyn.com, so that won't help. That being said, they do offer paid services for more or less a couple dollars a month if you're attached to their featureset or something.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[ProzacPatient]

Been very happy with https://freedns.afraid.org/ ever since dyndns deleted my free domain because I didn't login to their website once a month.

This happened to me as well; I used to use dyndns but I lost my domain when they switched the domain I had been using to a "premium" one so then I had to go and reconfigure everything that depended on it to a new domain so after looking at some other alternatives I ultimately decided to use EntryDNS with my own domain I bought from GoDaddy.

EntryDNS is donation driven and doesn't have any of the bull I found at over services (login once a month, upgrade to premium spam, link back to their site, etc..) and you have both the option of using a free subdomain and/or using your own domain. I've been very happy with their service and am considering donating something as a token of appreciation.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[geminidomino]

I moved away from them to DNS Exit after finding out that Afraid's default setup was to let anyone create a subdomain on your domain.

DNSExit isn't without their issues, though. If you don't want to use your DNS client, they have an HTTP updater. Unfortuantely, it's unencrypted and you need to put your password in as a "GET" parameter. Ugh!

Re:Viable Replacement?

[bzipitidoo]

Yes, and disingenuousness. They say they are ending the free service because there is too much abuse. Google, Yahoo, MS, and others can still offer free email, despite all the spam, but Dyn can't continue the free version of a service that is much simpler and easier to manage than email? And, wasn't there plenty of abuse 5 years ago, 10 years ago? They could handle it then, and now they can't?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Enfixed]

Go for No-IP. Been using them for years, personal and business. Exceedingly fast and their techs are awesome when you do have an off the wall issue. (Not affiliated with them in any way)

Re:Viable Replacement?

[ArhcAngel]

Let's see...an email service that spams you and blasts ads while you are reading emails every day vs a DNS service you set up and pretty much forget about except when it doesn't work or you need to change something. Yeah...loads of income potential there.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[macraig]

Been using afraid.org for years after dyndns.org cancelled my account because I bitched at them about something stupid/selfish they did. Apparently stupid/selfish is par for the course with those people, so I'm glad I was an early emigre.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[rotaryexpress]

Free Dynamic DNS is fine but....
I've used Namecheap.com for my personal domain for a few years now and recently found out you can do dynamic DNS with them too. I realize it's not free, but, it's my own domain on a service I'm paying for. It's nice having house.(mydomain).com...

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternately, their blog post is just PR spin, and the real reason is that its more important for them to provide service for a few large clients than continue to support the millions of folks who supported THEM for such a long time.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Curunir_wolf]

Nobody uses Zonomi?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[drafalski]

I've been very happy with their service and am considering donating something as a token of appreciation.

Consideration should help get their bills paid...

Re:Viable Replacement?

[MightyYar]

I don't really care one way or another. From my perspective, they promised "free forever" and for a while they delivered. Then they started down the annoying their users path and I fled. If they held some kind of monopoly I'd be a lot more worked up, but there are plenty of alternatives.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[spire3661]

5 to 10 years ago most routers and NAS didnt come with Dyn support.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Spoke]

Yeah, this. For way less than the price of what Dyn charges for DNS service, you can get your own domain name AND dynamic DNS service.

All with a company that doesn't try to screw you over every year, too.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[ProzacPatient]

I've been very happy with their service and am considering donating something as a token of appreciation.

Consideration should help get their bills paid...

I need to consider how much I can afford to donate and when I can fit it into my budget taking into account bills and other things I need to pay for.

consider
verb: consider; 3rd person present: considers; past tense: considered; past participle: considered; gerund or present participle: considering
1. think carefully about (something), typically before making a decision.
"each application is considered on its merits"
synonyms: think about, contemplate, reflect on, examine, review; More

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

use namecheap or gandi to buy a domain. Use tortois.es to get a vps. Done.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[X0563511]

Have they always had that "30-day expiration" or is that new? That is -quite- annoying.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[X0563511]

You have to use their nameservers.

I'd love to use this, but I run my own and would prefer to continue doing so.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[ArhcAngel]

Well in this business climate where "Unlimited" means whatever the legalese in the fine print says it is and is subject to change I'm not the least bit surprised forever is getting the same treatment.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

3322 is gone, taken down for hosting malware.
EasyDNS and DynDNS are the same service the article is about.
TZO requires payment, likewise ZoneEdit.

You just copy-pasted the services your router supports, didn't you.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[WuphonsReach]

Or go with some place like DNSMadeEasy where you get even more features for a flat $30/yr.

Their corporate pricing is a little ridiculous at $1500/yr, but the Small Business and regular Business plans are pretty good. Especially if you want geographically distributed DNS servers.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Hidyman]

Thanks for the tip. I use Namecheap and didn't know about this feature.
Now I can stop answering the no-ip emails every month.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

dyndns.org
freedns.afraid.org
no-ip.com
zoneedit.com
3322.org
easydns.com
tzo.com
dynsip.org

They are all pretty much the same as far as I care.

Yeah, great, but some routers' built-in support is locked to dyndns.org. I can recall a belkin G from half a decade ago, still in use by a friend. Maybe that's been fixed, but he'll need to shell out cash to fix something that should never have been hardcoded. At least dd-wrt doesn't have this problem.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

tzo.com is dyn.com as well.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, great, but some routers' built-in support is locked to dyndns.org. I can recall a belkin G from half a decade ago, still in use by a friend. Maybe that's been fixed, but he'll need to shell out cash to fix something that should never have been hardcoded. At least dd-wrt doesn't have this problem.

Oops, it was netgear, actually.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you have a domain withGoDaddy, shouldn't you be accessible through their DNS anyway?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[PhunkySchtuff]

I've had problems with afraid.org where a privately registered domain I held allowed other people to create their own hostnames in that domain. These hostnames were then used to spread malware with the result that I was receiving notices from Google saying my web site was compromised.

I had, say, www.example.com and then others were making asd34ghjb5fbs.example.com and using that to spread malware. Google saw that I owned example.com and so I received the notifications. I'd log into afraid.org and shut down all the hostnames that I didn't create, but they kept getting made even though I had private registration on my domain name.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[PhunkySchtuff]

Yep, I found that too. I had a privately registered domain with afraid.org that still allowed other people to create their own hostnames in that domain. These hostnames were then used to spread malware with the result that I was receiving notices from Google saying my web site was compromised.

I had, say, www.example.com and then others were making asd34ghjb5fbs.example.com and using that to spread malware. Google saw that I owned example.com and so I received the notifications. I'd log into afraid.org and shut down all the hostnames that I didn't create, but they kept getting made even though I had private registration on my domain name.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[macraig]

I found myself in a similar questionable situation once, and afraid.org helped me block/undo that subdomain when I explained my suspicion. They're responsive. Also, I dunno if it's default but you can be notified of each subdomain request and require explicit approval; that is how I learned of the questionable one in the first place.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[alexo]

How do use mycomputer.mydomain.example on afraid.org where mydomain.example is a domain I own, without advertising the domain on their system?
The "stealth" option is not available for free.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[laffer1]

You can do dynamic updates with BIND or windows DNS. There are perl modules to do it or you can run one of several possible command line utilities to update the ip address.

When I was still in college, I had a cluster of machines that I used for building packages for my BSD project. They were behind a NAT, but I had SSH access to them only they were also on DHCP. I setup a script that ran periodically on them to send their current IP address to a public facing website I ran and logged the IP to a mysql database. Then I had another process that would update the dns record securely after some sanity checking if the IP changed. I didn't want the nodes to have the update key for my DNS server and that's why I went through the crazy intermediate script + database.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and

duckdns.org
www.dnsdynamic.org

Re:Viable Replacement?

[klui]

I got an account to afraid.org several days ago. I thought as an owner of a private domain, you are allowed to reject the subdomains before they can be active. Isn't this so?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[PhunkySchtuff]

Yes, I thought that was the case, but I still got all sorts of junk subdomains registered... Maybe there was a problem with the way my domains were registered, I don't know. Either way, I moved them away...

Re:Viable Replacement?

[SeaFox]

Yeah, great, but some routers' built-in support is locked to dyndns.org. I can recall a belkin G from half a decade ago, still in use by a friend. Maybe that's been fixed, but he'll need to shell out cash to fix something that should never have been hardcoded. At least dd-wrt doesn't have this problem.

It doesn't have to be the actual router that makes the updates, since the dynamic DNS record simply points to your public IP, not to a specific machine on your side. My router doesn't support Dynamic DNS services at all. It's the FreeNAS server that's running on it that calls in to no-ip.com to update my record. The router just forwards the incoming requests to the correct machine on the network by port number.

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you run your own nameservers and not realise you can use them to run your own personal dynamic DNS service?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[X0563511]

Because I want a third-party to do that part, such that when my bind/apache box is down, I can still get to my shit?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Kalriath]

Amazon Route 53?

Re:Viable Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Namecheap DNS *is* free...

I use Namecheap for my domain purchases and DNS. Even if your domain is purchased elsewhere, Namecheap has a free DNS option which supports dynamic DNS - should be reasonable for most casual users.

Their basic service is only $25 / year

[damn_registrars]

I know it sucks to see something go from free to not free, but a while ago I upped by agreement with them from free service to their most basic level. For me its worth the $25 per year. Others may feel otherwise, and their may be cheaper solutions out there as well, but it works pretty well for me.

I also like that someone wrote an auto-update utility (ddclient in FreeBSD) that I can run on my webserver as a daemon to keep my records updated should my ISP change my address on me.

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[NJRoadfan]

Part of the problem is some devices that offer dynamic DNS updaters (routers in particular) only support the DynDNS service.

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot of money, considering for $10 the root servers will answer NS requests for your domain. I doubt anyone using a dynamic IP has enough requests to generate $25 a year of traffic. Heck, I can get a VPS that will give me 10+ GB (sometimes 100+ GB) of traffic each month for that price.

afraid.org only needs wget in a cron daemon to work...

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[SirMasterboy]

Why spend $25 when you can get an even better and likely shorter domain form something like godaddy or domain.com for about $8 a year for a .com?

You can use http://freedns.afraid.org/ to make your .com work with a dynamic IP too and that's free.

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[spire3661]

Because $25/year doesn't give me one dynamic IP name, it gives me 32.

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[SirMasterboy]

Oh OK. If you need more than 1, then that's a fine deal. Personally I use subdomains (which are basically unlimited) for that kind of task with my domain, but that isn't what everyone wants I guess.

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[X0563511]

But I only want dynamic DNS. I don't want or need anything else, so I don't want to pay for them.

Unfortunately they don't seem to have a "just dyndns" package.

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[John Bokma]

"Remote Access has you covered with the ability to create up to 30 hostnames (yourname.dyndns.org)"

So, no it gives you 30. Since they are subdomains of dyndns.org if you register your own domain name you'll have way more than just 30....

Re:Their basic service is only $25 / year

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the problem is some devices that offer dynamic DNS updaters (routers in particular) only support the DynDNS service.

^ This
Tech people wear big blinders sometimes and don't know real people's problems (these tend to be low-end routers, but for years people already would not touch G bands with a ten foot pole) Can't believe I had to scroll 75% of the way to see someone other than me state this.
I signed up recently for the complimentary Dlink-provided dyndns service after years of ignorance. I had been putting up with no-ip's expirations and unfriendly hostnames for the free tier. I wonder if my service won't get axed, because dlinkddns.com wasn't updated to show any warnings yet.

Plenty of Alternatives

[dannydawg5]

Dyn has been abandoning the free service for a while. Companies are responding to this.

The IP cams and routers I've bought in the past couple years (Foscam and ASUS) have rolled their own dynamic DNS service and built it in to their product. They use to just use Dyn until their customers started complaining saying Dyn is no longer free.

I have not needed Dyn's service in a while.

Re:Plenty of Alternatives

[spire3661]

Yeah 'the roll their own service' is shitty as hell, just ask LG

Still free for life for donors

[Anonymous Coward]

I made a donation back in the 90's so I still get my lifetime free vip account.

Other alternatives sell your e-mail address to spammers so beware! I'd use a junk e-mail account.

Re:Still free for life for donors

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a poor college student back in the 90s so instead I helped people setup their routers when Dyn ran their own NNTP server.

But I just got a termination email from them today, now I guess they only want my money. Screw those guys.

Re:Still free for life for donors

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. They want you to pay for a service that's been free for 15 years. And after you did some volunteer work a few decades ago. How unreasonable.

Another case for open source firmware.

[dmomo]

Looks like I'm going to My netgear router to tomato or dd-wrt
The current software has a dynamic dns setting, but it's a dropdown and Dyn DNS is the ONLY option. I hope they release a new firmware relaxing this restriction, but I have not seen any updates in a few years for my model.

Effectively, they are taking away functionality that I have already paid for. Sony did this when they made us choose between PSN (and effectively any internet communication) or Custom Operating System, changing the terms of our original purchase.

Thank god for open source. But, I wasn't looking forward to this side-quest. I'm sick of things I own ceasing to work just because some external entity wishes to make it so.

Re:Another case for open source firmware.

[zerro]

"Effectively, they are taking away functionality that I have already paid for."

You mean to say that you already paid DynDNS for service? If so, I dont see how this affects you, as you are a paying customer.
If you are talking about something you paid to a hardware/software company for a router which had dyndns feature - generating value for the said router vendor, but no revenue for dyndns - I'm not sure I understand the fairness in your argument.

Re:Another case for open source firmware.

[dmomo]

No. I bought the router because it had dynamic dns as a free feature. Free dynamic dns was listed as a feature. So yes. I did pay for the feature by buying the router. It would have been a simple matter for netgear to allow us to choose our own provider, but the current interface has a dropdown with ONLY dynamic dns. Do you understand the fairness now?

Re:Another case for open source firmware.

[Anonymous Coward]

So your problem is with Netgear and not Dyn, correct? So you should complain to Netgear, they are the ones that have your money.

Re:Another case for open source firmware.

[dmomo]

Indeed. Thank you for your contribution. I have no issue with dyndns ceasing a free service. I have a problem with netgear selling the feature as "free for life" and locking down the option to use other providers. And I did complain to them.

People were still using them?

[jrumney]

Dyn.com (the for-profit successor of dyndns.org) has been progressively making it harder to maintain your free address for the past 3 or 4 years. First, they made it so you had to update your DNS record once a month to avoid being cancelled (even if your IP address didn't change in that time), then they made it so you had to submit the update through their ad-infested web page, and I think they also increased the frequency that you had to do that. There are many alternatives which still provide a free service that is convenient to use, I'd have thought most users would have switched by now.

Re:People were still using them?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how many of us are left, but I've personally been using my free account to date. Yes, I have to re-register my domain name once every 30 days. I signed up a very long time ago when it was free, and was grandfathered in. Even though it was a hassle, i had many links back to this domain name that i didn't want to give up; forum links, links to pictures, personal web page, ect.. It's been a pain, but at least I've managed to keep it running over the last few years. Now, I'll have to either reconfigure every forum post link, and every website link that I've made, or just forget about them and start from scratch.

The archivist in me wants to not let OC die on the internet, so I'll probably make a list of things pointing to my domain, and slowly update them after I switch to something else. The realist in my wants to just let everything go.

Boo Dyn.com.

-KB57

Re:People were still using them?

[jrumney]

I guess I was lucky, in that I was using some indirection which made it easier to switch. From the start, I had my own domain, which was aliased to a dyndns.org domain (actually thruhere.net). I lost that when my update script missed the deadline for some reason, and they'd already moved that domain away from their free offerings so I couldn't get the same address back. I made the switch then, and only had to update my alias and wait a couple of hours for that to propagate. Given that I generally manage to keep the same IP address for 2 - 3 months at a time, I could manually update the IP address if it came to that, but it is easier to have a script to take care of the updating.

Re:People were still using them?

[Tailhook]

First, they made it so you had to update your DNS record once a month to avoid being cancelled

For the record, the first impediment I encountered was requiring a valid credit card to establish a free account.

15 years..... some of the users they're trying to monetize weren't born when dyndns started this deal.

Effectively ended last year

[mastagee]

This has been a few years in the making -- DynDNS started killing free hostnames that failed to check in within 30 days last June (maybe before?). I suppose you could sign up again, but they also removed a variety of domain names you could choose from. I lost my long held domain with a ath.cx suffix due to forgetting to confirm my dyndns login info after a DDwrt update.

I moved to Hurricane Electric a few years back as my primary dynamic DNS. They'll host your DNS for a domain you own for free, including dynamic update support. he.net

Free Dyn.com account with D-Link routers

[psychonaut]

Routers manufactured by D-Link come with their own free dynamic DNS service, which is basically farmed out to Dyn.com. I don't see any mention on the Dyn.com or D-Link websites that they're discontinuing this service, so presumably if you've got a D-Link router you can still create a free Dyn.com account with it.

changeip.com

[shellster_dude]

I use changeip.com. They provide great, free service, and I don't have to constantly "renew" the service.

Re:changeip.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you it took less than 5 minutes to switch and I've already forgotten about this dyn company...

Some ISP's offer free domains

[w-wright]

If you have a Static IP with my ISP. You can have a domain name in the style of *.plus.com Do any other ISP's offer this?

Re:Some ISP's offer free domains

[Megane]

If you have a static IP, you never needed dyndns to begin with. You could run your own DNS. (I have been since I first got DSL back in 2000.)

It's as simple as

[Anonymous Coward]

freedns.afraid.org. Premium accounts for $5/mo.

That's a shame.

[thevirtualcat]

I've been using my dyn.com domain for probably ten years now. Long enough that I don't actually remember when I originally signed up for it.

Regrettably, they don't register the TLDs I use and it's not worth $25/year to keep a "something.ath.cx" domain.

It was nice while it lasted, though.

Re:That's a shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using my dyn.com domain for probably ten years now. Long enough that I don't actually remember when I originally signed up for it.

Regrettably, they don't register the TLDs I use and it's not worth $25/year to keep a "something.ath.cx" domain.

It was nice while it lasted, though.

tongueb.ath.cx?

Re:That's a shame.

[thevirtualcat]

That would have been hilarious and I wish I had thought of it.

This doesn't even compare...

[cloud.pt]

...to Amazon UK stopping FREE Super Saver Delivery to Europe... ...letting us know by April the 3rd... ...that it was cancelling it for all orders since April 1st... ...SO IT WOULDN'T BE CONFUSED WITH AN EFFING APRIL'S FOOL!

Seriously, anybody who has the necessity to have a named, or fixed location on the WWW should not have a problem getting a fixed IP cheap by their ISP (as in cheaper than leaving the computer on 24/7), unless they are underage, in which case they should be explaining their parent's why do they need to be hosting anything on their computer with such needs, and parent will surely understand, unless parents are like 70'ish year old (which is uncommon for someone underage to have). And I bet there are still many freebies around for the needy ones. This post is to be noted as a warning for current users who might ignore the memo than actually something to take into account in the long run. Business will be business, as usual

Re:This doesn't even compare...

[jrumney]

Seriously, anybody who has the necessity to have a named, or fixed location on the WWW should not have a problem getting a fixed IP cheap by their ISP

I'm in Asia. My ISP doesn't do static IPs anymore. I'm lucky I'm on one that isn't doing carrier-grade NAT, though I don't know how long that will last.

Re:People were still using them? Zap2It sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit! GOD DAMN business wants me to part with my money just so I can get some sort of crappy service. Take zap2it (Chicago Tribune). Now that sucks. Worse now with its crappy format. Needs scripting. Hello ads. Terror-cell ads, too.

NOIP does the same...

[Anonymous Coward]

But dyn actually stopped sending the renewal emails, thus losing me my addresses, then turning out to have deleted those domains as available options for non-paying customers.

That's when I ended my relationship with them and jumped to noip.

After this though, I wonder how long util NOIP does the same.

Re:NOIP does the same...

[Anonymous Coward]

But dyn actually stopped sending the renewal emails, thus losing me my addresses, then turning out to have deleted those domains as available options for non-paying customers..

Ah, so it wasn't just me then..
That's when I gave them the old two fingered salute...

Re:NOIP does the same...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's when I gave them the old two fingered salute...

\m/

Re:NOIP does the same...

[moronoxyd]

But dyn actually stopped sending the renewal emails, thus losing me my addresses, then turning out to have deleted those domains as available options for non-paying customers..

Ah, so it wasn't just me then..

I got the renewal email just a week ago or thereabouts.

Re:NOIP does the same...

[houstonbofh]

It all depends on the conversion factor. What is the uptake of paid users from free accounts vs paid users outright?

if you want a billion static ips

[Anonymous Coward]

ask the usa spy agencies why they are using them

easy other solutions

[HussamAl-Tayeb]

Get a free .eu.org or .tk account, point it to cloudflare dns (also a free service) and point an A record to your own IP.

Moving that way

[Anonymous Coward]

The dyn.com service has been moving away from the free model for a while now, making it harder to maintain free dynamic DNS accounts. I have switched over to http://freedns.afraid.org/ and it has worked well for me. The service is great and, as the name implies, free.

Grandfathering existing free accounts or not?

[FuzzNugget]

I have a free account from years and years ago. It still works as long as I visit a URL that they email once a month (of course, they deliberately make the URL unclickable, while there are other clickable URLs within the *same* email... seriously, guys, offer free or don't offer it, but don't be a dick about it)

What TFA doesn't make clear is whether they are ending the grandfathering of existing free accounts or ending the offering of new free accounts (something I thought they already did a few years ago). The wording they've used is ambiguous.

Re:Grandfathering existing free accounts or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the email they sent to the free account holders:

To our Dyn free hostname users:

For the last 15 years, all of us at Dyn have taken pride in offering you and millions of others a free version of our Dynamic DNS Pro product. What was originally a product built for a small group of users has blossomed into an exciting technology used around the world.

That is why with mixed emotions we are notifying you that in 30 days, we will be ending our free hostname program. This change in the business will allow us to invest in our customer support teams, Internet infrastructure, and platform security so that we can continue to strive to deliver an exceptional customer experience for our paying customers.

We would like to invite you to upgrade to VIP status for a 25% discounted rate, good for any package of Remote Access (formerly DynDNS Pro). By doing so, you'll have access to customer support, additional hostnames, and more.

Here's how you get this done in two easy steps:

- Login to account.dyn.com.
- Click here to add Remote Access to your cart at the 25% off VIP rate. The discount will be applied upon checkout.

We thank you for your usage of Dyn through the years, and hope to continue to support you through Dyn Remote Access or other products for years to come. Please visit our FAQ page or this blog post for any additional information.

Re:Grandfathering existing free accounts or not?

[spire3661]

So thats what people meant by their ' ad infested site'. The link in the email must take you to some ad dump, before letting you continue.

Re:Grandfathering existing free accounts or not?

[trogdor8667]

I subscribed to their service at one point, and when I just logged in, I got an offer for something, but my service still shows up.

I haven't gotten an email from them about my service ending period, so I dunno what will happen with me.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have a grandfathered .ath.cx domain.

Will that be okay if I keep logging in every 30 days, or not?

Overvalued

[SkunkPussy]

The service they provide is worth about £1 or £2 a year.

Re:Overvalued

[rockmuelle]

With all the comments about moving to other free services or using this as an opportunity to start a new business, what is the value for most people? If there are enough people that value it at a certain price such that the costs of running the business are covered, there's a business to be made. Otherwise, it's just charity on the service's part. Sure, everyone likes getting stuff for free, but even free stuff costs money for someone.

-Chris

only a 1st year fix

[frovingslosh]

The providers that you mentioned will sell you a cheap domain name, but only for the first year. Then they want to jack up the price if you want to keep it. If you're only using the name yourself then I guess just changing domains every year might be acceptable, but in my case I have a number of friends who all connect through my Teamspeak server for gaming and it is disruptive to try to get all of them to change their settings (some are extremely non-technical and don't respond to instructions to change an address well).

Looks like I'll try switching to an alternative free provider, at least until Dyndns buys them out or convinces them to start charging too.

Re:only a 1st year fix

[SirMasterboy]

Well my first years was $5 (promo code) and the next 2 years have been $10 each so hardly much more expensive in my experience. So it's been $25 for 3 years so far through domain.com for nicko88.com for me.

They should (it gets abused by malware)

[Anonymous Coward]

What stops it? This (See B - stops other DNS faults too - bonus): Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

---

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

http://start64.com/index.php?o...

(Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

Summary:

---

A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

---

* Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see) - Addons slowdown SLOWER usermode browsers layering on MORE: I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

APK

P.S.=> * "A fool makes things bigger + more complex: It takes a touch of genius & a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - Einstein

** "Less is more" = GOOD engineering!

*** "The premise is, quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work FOR the body, rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen "I AM LEGEND"

...apk

distributed "dns"

[Anonymous Coward]

if you run a tor-relay you can give it a (not guaranteed) nickname that will show up
on websites likes atlas.torproject.org with a IP-address.
also you could NOT run a tor-relay but just a hidden-service instead.
or you could have your "server" join a IRC chat and then do a "whois" from another
on-the-road computer on the nick to get a IP-address ... just saying/

All because ISPs want to crosssell

[houghi]

At the time of dialup there was an ecuse to not have as many IP adresses as there were customers. Now there will be at least as many IP adresses as there are customers for an ISP. So having a fixed IP would be no problem.
having a reversed DNS for your mail (on reqiuest) is also no a real issue.
Goin g from dynamic to fixed DNS for providers should not be a serious issue on a technical level.

However selling IP adresses is a very profitable business model. No investment (People need an IP adress anyway as they are already only 24/7) on the IP adresses. On the receiving end, just the billing system and you can ask almost anything.

When comparing prices between fixed and non fixed IP in Belgium, the average difference was about 50EUR per IP adress. This only looking at the speed of the connection. non-fixed would also receive webspace, email accounts and the like.

That is 50x12=600EUR per year for your IP without any additional investment on part of the ISP. When I asked several ISPs, they basically said: we get away with it so we do it.
One admitted that having a fixed IP would be cheaper in opperation.

Luckily I found a provider that has fixed IP and no limit for a reasonable price. Not the cheapest, but the best value for money for what I want.

domain != dyndns

[kevlar_rat]

There is a little confusion here. Dynamic DNS means the domain record is constantly updated to point to the correct IP address. Its completely independent of domain registration. godaddy does not offer a dyndns service. Most dyndns services do not offer domains.
DynDNS is useful if you want to be able to always contact a box on a domain, but it's got a dynamic IP address - i.e. typically for running a server on a home box. I use it to ssh into home when I'm away, I just do ssh mydyndomain.org and don't need to worry about IP addresses.
I have had domains with godaddy in the past, but I've always used dyn.com as well.
It is possible to use a script to update your A record through your registrar's web interface, but this will break every time they update the site.
P.S. I recommend not using godaddy.

Re:domain != dyndns

[Rufus Firefly]

Enom has an API to do this. It's trivial to set update your A record using it.

But I agree, every time you use godaddy, baby Jesus kills a kitten.

Re:domain != dyndns

[hobarrera]

freedns (freedns.afraid.org) offer free DNS hosting, including dynamic DNS. So just buy a domain, and use that. Still cheaper than $25/y.

So isp must have paid you.

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet of old is useless now.

I might not even renew my access when my contract is up.
Nothing on the net I need any more.

I need the money to pay for food more.

If you have Linode, then it is free ...

[kbahey]

If you have a Linode VPS, then you do have free Dynamic DNS. All you need is a script to update the relevant subdomain.

Here is a script that does it for an OpenWRT router.

Using Linode Dynamic DNS with OpenWRT

If you don't use OpenWRT, you can still use any Linux box behind the subdomain, but you need to setup a small "what is my IP" script outside your subdomain. For example, simple script like so will do the trick:

<?php
print $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] . "\n";
?>

Now, you need to change the OpenWRT script above to contact the server that has the PHP script, and get the public IP address of the subdomain.

Re:If you have Linode, then it is free ...

[Dynedain]

Now, you need to change the OpenWRT script above to contact the server that has the PHP script, and get the public IP address of the subdomain.

OpenWRT and DD-WRT and Tomato already have DynDNS support built in. No reason to setup a PHP and Apache server behind the router to do this.

You still need a public-facing nameserver somewhere to update the DNS to IP address mapping. That's the key service that DynDNS was providing. Reporting your IP is the easy part.

Re:If you have Linode, then it is free ...

[kbahey]

You did not understand what I said ...

First, I was giving an example of how to get free Dynamic DNS if you already host with Linode. No extra service needed.

Second, the script I described and included the source code for, runs on OpenWRT. Since OpenWRT is a router it does not need to run a remote script (PHP or otherwise) to know what its external IP address is.

Finally, the PHP script was if you do not have OpenWRT, and want to have the equivalent functionality with Linode from a Linux machine that is not the router, inside your network. In this case, you need to get the external IP by running a script on your Linode VPS, then updating Linode's DNS using curl command.

Clearer now?

No-IP is a great alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

No-IP welcomes all Dyn users.. Check it out http://noip.co/1jVi5th

no

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have ever sold a business like this, there is usually a 'no-compete' type condition for many years, usually a decade.

Re:no

[Wookact]

So you have invalidated step 5. Steps 1-4 are still good though.

Re:no

[sexconker]

If you have ever sold a business like this, there is usually a 'no-compete' type condition for many years, usually a decade.

If you have ever conducted business, you would know that there is always a negotiation phase.
If you have ever conducted business, you would know that dyn.com would love this approach as long as the number of users joining dyn.com from FreeOptionB exceeded the number of FreeOptionA users leaving. Right now many people are deciding between paying or finding another free option. If you provide a free option and then ship them off to dyn.com and present them with the same option, some percentage are going to decide to pay so they don't have to deal with this a third time. That percentage decreases as you get to the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. times, and the value of the exercise decreases along with it.

I take it you're not familiar with ticketmaster and ticketsnow . They do the same shit and sweep their affiliation under the rug as much as legally possible. Instead of shuffling users around they shuffle the product around to maximize gouging. When you think of dyn.com's free users and the users of the other free service you offer and plan to sell off to dyn.com as the product, it matches up perfectly.

Pay the Toll or Take the Free Road
  - You profit when people Pay the Toll
  - If you control the Free Road you basically get to bully people into making that choice again and dealing with the cost of Paying the Toll vs. the inconvenience of finding a Free Road that stays free.

duckdns.org

[X0563511]

That is all.

SMS verification

[tepples]

Google, Yahoo, MS, and others can still offer free email, despite all the spam

Nowadays you usually have to give a working cell phone number and retype a code from an SMS message that the service sends to you in order to activate a free e-mail account. Yahoo! requires SMS verification to create an account at all, and Google requires SMS verification to add Gmail. If you have a land line instead of a mobile phone, or if multiple people in your household share a mobile phone, too bad.

But there is probably a computer behind that routr

[Marrow]

And that computer can use any service you care to setup.

Go Daddy has no dynamic DNS

[tepples]

Why spend $25 when you can get an even better and likely shorter domain form something like godaddy or domain.com for about $8 a year for a .com?

The last time I checked, Go Daddy provided no API for a background service running on your server to update the zone file whenever the service notices that the server's IP address has changed. Zone files can be edited only through the web interface. With which registrar that provides such an API have you had a positive experience?

Re:Go Daddy has no dynamic DNS

[SirMasterboy]

I linked it before.

https://freedns.afraid.org/dyn...

They have a dynamic IP updater that you can use and so you can just set your nameservers on your godaddy domain to afraid's nameservers and then you will have dynamic IP on your godaddy or anyone else's domain.

How does this effect Free For Life?

[Mirar]

How does this effect me as Free For Life user of dyndns?

Because I still seem to be.

Once the warranty runs out

[tepples]

In practice, "life" will likely end up limited to the 90 days or 12 months or whatever for which the product is expressly warranted.

Saw this coming

[solarium_rider]

Saw this coming a long time ago (well at least 9 months ago). So...roll your own: http://warped.org/blog/2013/07...

On the same note,

[ledow]

I'm a Dyn.com customer of old so I got an email to tell me that the promise to be "always free" back then holds for me, even if not for newer customers.

But when I was looking for a more modern replacement, I was expecting to be able to set up a Dyn-compatible service for my old domains using an external Linux server. There doesn't seem to be anything easy for that.

What I'd like is a Linux package which you can install on a server, and have it provide Dyn-like updating, without me having to play with BIND and all sorts (I don't do nameserving, so it's no particular fuss to install a nameserver JUST for this purpose). I thought DNSMasq might do it, as it's so powerful it tends to do everything, but that doesn't seem to offer it.

And if it's Dyn.com compatible in the protocol it uses to accept reports from clients, it's just a matter of hacking in your IP instead of Dyn.com's. But I couldn't find anything that wasn't a case of "install this series of Perl scripts in such a way that they play with the internals of your existing, perfectly working BIND setup, and basically get called from web-requests with permissions enough to do just that".

Anyone know of some software that works like the server-side of Dyn.com so I could host my own DynDNS service for my home accounts using a static, external server?

Re:On the same note,

[Dynedain]

Dyn.com pushes your IP address info out globally. So if you want a run-your-own replacement, you MUST have a working BIND installation. There's no other way to do it. Dyn.com was running a whole bunch of services that all map back to their BIND servers.

Re:On the same note,

[ledow]

1) Why only bind (it's not the only nameserver)?
2) Why is there not a "install and go" version of it?

Every tutorial I see starts with some huge parenthesised section of a bind zone and several scripts to manually update other bind files (like the comment a few below this one).

Surely, if you're not caring about anything else on the domain you give it, there must be a zero-config version of it that saves someone having to cock up a bind installation.

Re:On the same note,

[Dynedain]

Because setting up a working BIND installation is a pain. Sure, there are alternative DNS servers, but BIND is the preferred choice on Linux.

If there was a lot of demand for a click-and-go server and configuration, someone would have written it already. But then again, this is a big part of the Linux mindset. If tool A can be tweaked in a convoluted way to perform task B as a subset of its normal operations, then there's rarely incentive be build a dedicated tool for task B

I knew it was too good to be true

[essbase_nerd]

I was pretty good about noticing the "renewal" emails, but I knew it was just a matter of time before either I missed an email, or they terminated free service.

I just bought a two year TLD from Namecheap, with WhoIsGuard service for $27 total. Not bad. There are a handful of DNS updater apps available for Namecheap, including a Chrome extension, so this should work out fine.

So long, DynDNS, it was a great ride while it lasted!

Bill Gates

[DarthVain]

"Buy 'em out Boys!"

Nerds smash up Homer Simpson's office

"You don't think I got rich by *actually* buying people out did you?"

sry, first thing that came to mind...

Re:Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't become the richest man in the world by writing a lotta cheques!

Guess who owns zoneedit now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess who owns zoneedit now?

No problem

[DaveJ45]

Not a problem, I moved my free DNS services to No-IP a couple of years ago.

This is about Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hillary Clinton campaign is tied to Dyn.com through its officer, Gray Chynoweth and others. This is important because in 1999, I hosted critical evidence on the free dyndns service. A free service can't be censored in the same way that a paid for service can. I know this from personal experience by using this free service. I couldn't be censored until now. My ISP was pressured to close my account but couldn't because the NZ courts upheld my Lifetime Premier Internet connection. Instead the ISP was sold many times and is now in the hands of Vodafone. You may think me delusional, when I say that maintaining this 15 year long Clinton battle has cost me everything, but that's just the way it turned out. Being railroaded by Clinton reputation cleaners means they've set up everything to go down a single track to make me appear guilty and take the fall for a crime and not be able to get out of it. Unbeknownst to me a dormant bank account was fed with disability checks and then siphoned. My regular NZ bank account was also drained by someone booking a flight out of Malta for a Libyan to get to Ukraine in early Sept 2011, and then after 20 million seconds, or 33 weeks to be exact on May 1st, 2012, I was sent a phishing email from a Masonic organization in Paris alerting me to the dormant bank account in Canada. Inquiries led me to believe a higher amount actually existed and subsequent attempts to settle this overpayment have been stonewalled and bank transactions no longer exist to explain the siphoned funds. Search for dyndns + clinton and save what you can from the first Google link, because in a month it will be gone and so will I.

Free Web filtering gone also

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using free Dyndns service for the past years mainly because they also offer a free web filtering service called "Internet Guide" with the free dyndns account. It has been a very helpful service to block unsafe or unwanted content from web sites and at same time having white/black lists for some specific sites. It's sad to have this service gone when the free account finish. Certainly there are other dns filter services like Norton Safe Connect, but they lack of the customization that Dyn "Internet Guide" has.

Does any other alternative dynamic dns services offer a web filtering service with their free accounts?

For Windows boxes at home

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a combination of DynDNS + Remote Desktop on WinXP for years. Heck, I installed it on most family members computers to enable remote access. I moved to Win7 Home Premium, refusing to pay the extra for Professional+ versions just to get Remote Desktop.

Ended up replacing the combination with TeamViewer. Sad to see DynDNS go, but not surprised, and, not greatly affected at this point.

To be expected.

[Antony T Curtis]

Just for convenience, I have been a paying customer of Dyn for a couple of years, now.
It is a sad end but it will not change my use of their services.

Sad to see it go

[Trogre]

I transitioned to their "premier" pay service a while ago so this doesn't affect me, though I still know a lot of folks who have been using their free service.

Boomercided

[Anonymous Coward]

Being railroaded by Clinton reputation cleaners means they've set up everything to go down a single track to make me appear guilty and take the fall for a crime and not be able to get out of it.

Boomercide: New government policy to get those from Woodstock to Suicide

the only thing sad is router support

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ADSL modem/routers seem to only let you use no-ip and dyn inc you cant use any of the reliable ones or heck even your own, really they should just support the protocol and let you choose any provider that supports the same protocol.

Any service that requires a monthly click to renew subscription sucks hard no end user is going to consistently re-confirm they are still using the dynamic dns address.

Re:the only thing sad is router support

[marka63]

Then you should complain to the router vendor. Dynamic UPDATE and TSIG were
standardised over a decade ago to allow everyone to use the same protocol.
You should just be able to type in the update server's name if it isn't one of
the zone's nameservers. If it is then it shouldn't be needed.

nsupdate
server <servername>
key keyname <secret>
update delete hostname A
update add hostname 300 A 1.2.3.4
send

Never had to submit updates through a web page

[Anonymous Coward]

I always used ddclient or whatever was on my router running openWRT.

When they introduced the monthly web-based login, I figured this day was coming, but I scripted an automated login using Python and stuck it in a cron job that ran weekly, just in case it got missed because of a problem.

I paid for the 5-year upgrade, since I've been using them for years for free and had intended to donate once upon a time. Now I kinda wish I had. Oh well, with the discount it was ~60 bucks for 5 years, and the wildcard support is included (that's something they took away from the free users years ago, and something I actually used a lot for some vhosts on my apache server).

So yeah, I was still using them, and decided the service was worth paying for.

Another alternative: DtDNS

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months ago, I wanted to use the free hostname from DynDNS, but I found out that new users couldn't get a free hostname anymore.

So, I looked for alternatives. I found No-IP and DtDNS (and a few others). With No-IP, you need to confirm your account every 30 days. You don't need to do that with DtDNS, so I went with DtDNS.

Lost dyndns account - my solution.

[VlartBlart]

I host a personal website on my pi - after losing my free dyndns account I came up with this solution. It's ugly but it works for me...

I have an account with Dreamhost for my other sites. On Dreamhost I created a subdomain pi.mydomainname.com. My pi checks it's external ip address every 10 minutes - if it changes - it ftp's its new address to pi.mydomainname.com. If you browse over to pi.mydomainname.com there is an index.php that does a redirect to whatever the latest pi ip address is.

My address changed last weekend and the site is still up.

replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurricane Electric rocks! And the update protocol is just HTTP.

Whatever, there are always others

[neminem]

I use no-ip. Actually, they were having a sale a few months ago, so I threw them some money for a year. I don't use any of the fancy features, though it is pretty nice not getting the monthly nag email. Still, their free offering is fine, you just get a monthly nag email (which I'm sure dyn.com gave you something similar too).

Hey DNS bullshit artist... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...

APK

P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!)

NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!

(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)

... apk

Now they've taken to spamming...

[psychonaut]

As of today it looks like they've started implementing a new business strategy: sending spam e-mails to their former free account holders for webinars. I've closed my account and added dyn.com to my spam filter.

I wouldn't hold your breath..

[Anonymous Coward]

They promised that they would maintain the free services, and then broke that promise.

I give you one more year before they pull your service as well...

The problem with Dyn is NOT...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that they have withdrawn a free service. All businesses have to operate in their commercial environment, and may make such decisions.

The problem is that they PROMISED that they would maintain the free service, and then broke their word. As recently as last year they said:

"...you continue to do your bit - log into your account once a month - and we'll do ours - continue to provide free domain names..."

In retrospect we can see that they were simply lying as they tightened the screw...