I’m currently on the lookout for privacy-respecting domain registrars. What are you guys using and why?
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.
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.
I’ve been with Porkbun for over a year now. No complaints.
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.
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?
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.
Do you know if they support Dynamic DNS?
+1 for Porkbun. They are exceptionally unexceptional.
+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.
Porkbun works good for me
In the process of moving all my stuff to porkbun as well. It’s the best.
CloudFlare
Cloudflare and Namecheap. I would use Cloudflare because of cost
Namecheap since I have been using them since the 00s and never had any problems.
Njalla doesn’t seem to be a good option according to this comment on a privacy-focused forum.
Njalla was founded and is ran by Peter Sundee, aka brokep, of Pirate Bay fame… If there’s anyone you can trust …
I would also say this. Njalla is good
njal.la is without a doubt one of the better ones if privacy is number one priority.
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?
Porkbun asks for your ID now so that might not be “privacy-respecting” but their CS is very helpful from my experience.
I have domains in Netim and Spaceship, and I have no problems with either so far.
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.
Maybe its different now, but it didn’t used to be possible to do that.
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.
Same here. I’ve never had a reason to switch away.
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 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
I use Hostpoint.
They were recommended by Protonmail, and meet my privacy concerns.
+1 for Hostpoint. All my servers are in Switzerland as well.
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.
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.
