Who are people's current favorite domain registrars? I've been with name.com for the last year or so and have been happy, but I'm always curios to hear from others.
+1 for Namecheap, I have 2 (going on 3 soon) domains with them and I've never had a problem. They also have a coupon code for pretty much anything you want to purchase for them.
I've heard good things about them from friends. This article was the last straw for me -- I just migrated my 90 domains off of GoDaddy. Actually, I didn't. I just told DNSimple to do all the work, via their (brilliant) concierge onboarding option: http://blog.dnsimple.com/2014/01/domain-transfer-concierge-s...
"Here's my credit card and GoDaddy creds, guys, and here's a technical note about my DNS settings that I want you to pay extra special attention to. Tell me when I should expect to start getting the GoDaddy confirmation emails. Other than that, have fun playing with DNS settings -- I never want to even think about them again."
This post is 5% "Here's my recommendation for a DNS service" and 95% "Notice how in return for an hour or two of grunt work a SaaS company just made it very easy for me to award them $2,000 of high-margin recurring revenue a year despite being twice as expensive as my pre-existing option by successfully overcoming my 'I would love to move off my existing solution but it requires grunt work so I think I'll punt on that decision for, oh, eight years' objection? That's a really good trade. You should consider offering it in your SaaS business, too, in any way that makes sense for it."
I'm really surprised you were still on GoDaddy.. but good thing you moved away. And yes, sometimes small tasks like moving domains can feel like moving a mountain.
On the other hand, we're talking about security here, and, sadly, a company that has extra helpful support may be more easily socially engineered. The author's advice to use gmail.com addresses only works because Google basically has no customer support for gmail.com, so there's no one to social engineer!
This is, ironically, one of the reasons I feel more secure with their 3-man firm than with GoDaddy. GoDaddy has all the resources to put in place a well-architected ISOwhatever procedure with flow-charts, custom software, and government document review... and then fail at their one job. These guys, on the other hand, pretty much will be forced to having an actual human who knows me decide "Is this chap claiming to be Patrick really Patrick?" I feel really secure that a smart geek who has standing orders from me "I DON'T TRANSFER DOMAIN NAMES EVER." can reason out an ad hoc verification process which is much, much more likely to reject a fraudster than the GoDaddy CSR following the manual will be. (I mean, since they're two degrees of separation from me and our mutual friend is a business acquaintance well known to both of us, they could literally just call the friend and say "Someone is claiming to be Patrick and wants to transfer all his domains. You know that's a thermonuclear change since you're in this industry too. Call him and ask whether he knows about this. We'd both appreciate the favor. If he does we're good, if he doesn't, we're blocking this chump.")
Those are excellent points. Some of it only applies to you (being a large customer and having 2 degrees of separation), but I too would feel a lot more comfortable with 3 decent- and competent-sounding guys like them than with a larger company like GoDaddy.
GoDaddy has one job: making sure that, with regards to domain names I've purchased, people accessing them get sent to IPs which I control. GoDaddy just demonstrated that they're capable of failing at their one job if anyone applies a determined high schooler level of intelligence to defeating their security processes.
I run a business which collapses catastrophically if I lose control of my Internet presence, and I'm at least as Internet-exposed as "a guy who owns a desirable Twitter handle."
I don't care about elephant hunting. I put up with years of my intelligence getting insulted by SSL certificates being hawked by models. I can appreciate that the economics of the business mean that there need to be upsells to continue offering the low low prices. Fine. But if you cough up a domain, that's it, we're done. I care about that like Thomas cares about SSL CAs offering a CA=true cert to a third party.
+1 DNSimple. 2FA and a truly simple interface. VERY easy templates for common things like blogs, email, etc. Really easy to get up and going on a domain there.
About a year ago I registered at DNSimple to check out their services, because I was frustrated with my current registrar/DNS host (1and1.) One of the owners must have noticed I registered but didn't buy anything, because he contacted me to ask if there was anything in particular I needed. I appreciated the courtesy and told him I'd switch over when my domain neared expiration... and when the time came, I did!
Honestly I don't have enough experience with them to really evaluate their services, but they seem trustworthy and competent, and I like working with people I know I can talk to.
Wouldn't recommend them. I heard they have a "moral contract" you have to agree to. If they don't like what you're doing with your domains (even if it's legal), they can (I forget, seize or kick you out, but bad stuff).
I'm using a small local regitrar, europeandomaincentre.com - I originally picked them because they can accommodate all sorts of international domains, and partially because they are within walking distance of my office. That way, if something goes wrong, I could go there and talk to them in person.
Their customer service has been really great since, so I'm staying. It's probably slightly more expensive than I could get elsewhere, but for the sense of security I get, it's completely worth it.
Point being- In this shitty business, where trust is everything - I prefer a small player who I can have a direct personal relation to, over some big nameless corporation.
If you have a lot of domains (or willing to pay a premium), I am a huge fan of Fabulous.com. Good support, good pricing, my impression is fairly secure. They have an executive lock feature:
Executive-lock (E-Lock) allows for the domain name to be frozen. This means that the domain name is:
1. Unable to be transferred out to another Registrar.
2. Unable to be pushed to another Fabulous account.
3. Unable to have changes to its nameservers.
4. Unable to have the registrar-lock status removed.
You can define whatever conditions you want and they manually do them if you want it unlocked. It could take many days to unlock your domain, but it definitely isn't going anywhere.
They are focused on large portfolio customers. That's kind of the caveat for their service. Many of those large customers also use their other services like domain parking too.
Gandi's pretty good, except they have strange terms of service : "By accepting Our Contracts and using Our Services, You agree to abide to Our code of ethics which consists, in particular, of protecting and respecting minors, human dignity, public order and good moral standards [...]"
I like http://www.gandi.net/
Not the cheapest registar around, but great service, allows me to edit the zone file directly, and also sells dirt-cheap PaaS.
My friends run sliqua.com, so I go through them. I haven't had any issues with them, their support is pretty good, and the price is good. I would definitely recommend them to other people.
How can you be sure their customer support can't also be socially engineered? I'm actually hesitant to use a service which requires 5 security questions to make a change, because I bet so many people forget their answers that their support is lax when it comes to bypassing them.
Because they ask questions only the user would know about the account and its history:
We will need to ask you questions to verify your identity. These questions will be different based upon your account and history with us. Please understand that these verification steps are for your protection.
