I’m currently on the lookout for privacy-respecting domain registrars. What are you guys using and why?
Edit: I’ve registered my domain with Porkbun. I got a really cool one, it’s called reallyaweso.me!
Recently moved over to porkbun after dealing with a couple billing issues with namecheap and not getting the best customer service. Been pretty happy so far.
So I’m quite new to this, and searching around hasn’t been to clear… if I’m looking to have my own E-mail domain, do I buy a domain in addition to subscribing to an E-mail… service… thing?
Yes, you need to buy (register) a domain beforehand.
The e-mail provider of your choice that provides custom domains will ask you to- either point your domain to their nameservers (done from the domain provider’s panel)
- or insert/update some DNS records on your domain (either from your domain provider’s panel if it is supported or you can link your domain to another DNS service e.g. CloudFlare)
Thank you very much! I’ll look into snagging a domain and setting up like, Bluehost or Proton. I use Proton’s free tier now, but it looks like it’s about 3x as much for their good E-mail plan compared to Bluehost.
What kind of TLD did you buy? Did you choose a TLD that’s supported by the WHOIS privacy? I wanted to see if
alexpewmaster.dewas available, and it told me this:⚠️ PRIVACY WARNING ⚠️ This TLD does not allow WHOIS privacy but generally redacts your personal information. This means that your personal contact information will be sent to the registry but it should not be made public.Generally the country based TLDs have that problem. That isn’t unique to porkbun or .de
I have a .de domain with them. No personal info are shown on whois info.
That’s a really weird way of putting it. EU ccTLDs don’t offer whois privacy because it’s not needed. They have whois privacy built-in as well as very strong privacy laws.
If you want a .de domain I would recommend using inwx.de as registrar they have extremely low prices for .de and often run discounts for the first year as well.
The one thing to keep in mind if you’re not a German citizen and/or not have a German address is that you need to provide one after you register a .de domain. INWX has a service for 3 eur/yr that will provide one on your behalf.
Some other cheap European domains without any requirements and built-in mandatory whois privacy are .be, .nl, .fr and .ro.
Keep in mind that some of these ccTLD don’t allow purchasing multiple years in advance and also force you to reset your leftover term if you transfer.
If you’re gonna get an European ccTLD you should also use an European registrar like INWX or Netim or Gandi. Using an European ccTLD with an American registrar kind of defies the whole point.
I’ve been using Porkbun for over 5 years and haven’t had any issues. I switched from a mix of Google Domains and Namecheap.
I’ve been with Porkbun for over a year now. No complaints.
I moved all of my domains to Porkbun when Google Domains started to close down or become SquareSpace or whatever they were doing.
No complaints so far.
Do you know if they support Dynamic DNS?
You can use something separate like Zoneedit for the DNS records
Porkbun works good for me
+1 porkbun. $1.60 for a .top whois privacy. 2FA with security key. Even let me host my own nameserver, so I can have separate internal and external views.
Any registrar allows you to host your own nameservers. You just point to your server from the registrar console.
Cloudflare does not.
Yeah, you have to pay for that feature on cloudflare but considering that they are so cheap I think it’s not so bad.
Every other registrar I have seen allows it though (they are usually more expensive since they earn a profit on registrations.)
porkbun > cloudflare
+1 for Porkbun. They are exceptionally unexceptional.
In the process of moving all my stuff to porkbun as well. It’s the best.
Cloudflare cause they already had my DNS and google domains was on its way to the google graveyard. Not sure how privacy respecting they are but they do offer some kind of partial whois redaction. Surely better than google though?
Previously Gandi, but they’ve jacked up their prices and cut features, so in the process of moving to AWS Route53.
My main requirements are:
- Competitively priced (doesn’t need to be the absolute cheapest, but the feature set better justify the price)
- Able to manage domain with Terraform (I’ve got 10 domains, and copy-pasting DNSSEC keys around gets old really fast)
- Not be CloudFlare (fuck those guys in particular)
Namecheap because they’ve lived up to their name. The DNS for my domains is all on Cloudflare though as I can automate my letsencrypt renewal that way that I couldn’t on plain old namecheap.
I’m on name cheap and all my letsemcrypt renewals are automated easily.
Just had a thought. It was wildcard subdomain I couldn’t do with namecheap. Things like *.domain.tld
I use acme.sh and everything works fine. It has hooks for namecheap and wildcrds automatically renew
Maybe its different now, but it didn’t used to be possible to do that.
I can automate my lets-encrypt renewal
how? I have a cron job for that on my hosting server.
Same
What privacy concerns do you have? I’m all for privacy, but I don’t really see where registrars are a delicate topic in that. The most that comes to mind is that some (most?) have a service where they do not give out your name and address for whois requests, but instead the details of the registrar (namecheap has that for example).
I want my private information to be hidden in Whois requests. Also, I don’t want to buy a domain from a registrar that seems very sketchy.
Most registrars offer whois privacy protection which is a randomized forwarder, so if someone emails the contact it can get to you but none of your information is shown. Usually about $2 a year, don’t forget to auto-renew it.
Namecheap usually adds it for free for the initial registration period.
Some add this as an additional fee and others include it in the annual price.
I’ve been using nearlyfreespeech.net for a very long time. They’re a small, reliable, outfit that’s been around forever and definitely respects your privacy.
Same here. I’ve never had a reason to switch away.
Was on Google cause I just initially was setting them up there. Moved to cloudflare the day they added dev tlds.
Curious about your reasoning, especially as I bought a .dev for myself a while back (via a different registrar)
If it was in regards to the .zip TLD then I guess that is understandable, but .dev seems harmless IMO
I have mine on Namecheap, but i’ve moved the nameserver to Cloudflare. Been using them for a while, can’t complain at all. Am also paying for their email service on the same domain
OVH because it’s European
Initally some local site, then I transferred to GoDaddy, then to OVH (since GD is shit). One is still at Cloudflare (tried to move there, but they don’t support al TLDs that I use, like “.eu”).
For DNS I use Cloudflare. They provide a layer of privacy, i.e. your server IPs don’t get exposed directly.
name.com. I don’t remember why I picked them, but they do no BS and the service is fine.
No particular reason. They seem pretty alright.
Cloudflare, because my understanding is that they typically renew at basically cost, and that’s where most of my other DNS stuff is anyway.
I typically buy domains at whatever registrar is cheapest at the time for initial purchase, which most recently was namecheap IIRC.
I’m interested in your “other DNS stuff”
Likely a bad description. I more meant DNS, page rules, tunnels, zero trust logins, and more. It’s honestly just easier to keep it all in one place, and to be honest they are one of the more reliable sources for… literally all of those things.
Hmm, do you have all of this described somewhere? This sounds like a great setup
Nah, it’s just stuff I set up as needed.
The page rules are basic, one redirects to an Etsy shop, another to serve images for email from a cdn, and another for handling QR codes.
Tunnels are set up for subdomains to reach internal network stuff, with a Cloudflare Zero Trust login which prompts for those that don’t have secure logins.
The DNS stuff is subdomains, email records, and a few records for certain game servers.
I also use cloudflare to monitor my DKIM rejections, though my email is through mxroute as they have/had a lifetime option and I don’t like subscriptions.
There are a few different sites as well, one is personal, one is for public facing stuff, a couple for side businesses.
It’s honestly just easier to keep as much together as possible.
INWX because it’s a local provider which seems decent.
