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Comment by brlewis | Hacker News Reader

I transferred 7 domains today. What a great way to support the EFF at no cost to me.

For those of you who think this costs something: the $6.99 price is for an additional year of domain registration that is added to whatever time remains at godaddy. If you were going to renew your domains at some point anyway, it's essentially free.

I will have no downtime since my DNS is not at godaddy. If you use godaddy DNS see http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/...

I don't know for sure that namecheap is the world's best registrar, but I decided not to overthink it, since if choosing a registrar were really such a key decision I wouldn't have stayed at godaddy for years. And with transfer being so easy I don't expect there to be a problem if I decide to move elsewhere later. In the meantime I'm supporting the EFF and exercising meaningful opposition to SOPA.

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> I don't know for sure that namecheap is the world's best registrar, but I decided not to overthink it

I really wish people would. Who here ever heard of Namecheap before they blasted GoDaddy for ``breaking ICANN rules'' by restricting their whois access just before industry experts confirmed that it's standard practice for preventing abuse? It reeks of dishonesty and Namecheap seems to be doing whatever they can to stay viral. Registrars have always been a shady bunch and adopting one without research has never been a good idea.

I'm not convinced deeply researching registrars is worth my time. I skimmed through the terms of service before switching to namecheap and that's it. They're a commodity. If the only thing distinguishing this one is that they might put out a press release about 25,000 Internet power users voting against SOPA with their money, that's enough for me. Considering that the only harm I suffered from staying with godaddy for years was a sense of dissatisfaction at being associated with them, I doubt namecheap will do anything in the next 60 days (after which I can transfer elsewhere) to make me regret switching.

If you've got a non-shady registrar and reasons to think it's the best, post something and maybe I'll transfer to them in March.

I have. Not that it means anything to you or anyone else. :)

I've been using namecheap for domains and dns for a number of years now without issue. I transferred a majority of my domains there after numerous people (on other social news sites) recommended them over GoDaddy.

Careful! namecheap has shown clever marketing. That's how godaddy made a business.

I tested their DNS today, and their email forwarding. They reject entire Comcast mail servers as spammers! Plus, they want ME to get comcast to follow up with their blacklist providers.

Anyone got a godaddy alternative to recommend that's not so, well, cheap and cheesy?

http://www.nametoolkit.com. Simple as it gets.

Yes, please do give it a look, we're currently A/B testing a new theme and we could use feedback. Namecheap are certainly better than Godaddy but they're still nowhere near as simple as using our service.

Thanks, Mark. But I don't see anything on your site about how to transfer a domain. Also, I need email forwarding, as well as the usual DNS stuff.

Good luck your new service! Congrat's on the press.

Gandi and Hover

Thanks, J. Although neither one has email forwarding (and namecheap's email forwarding is broken) Hover does have a phone number where SMART HELPFUL PEOPLE answer. She suggested that I use Google apps for my email. (facepalm, of course!) And coupon "SOPA" gives 10% off their $10 transfer (free Whois privacy). Renewals will be $15 (still free privacy).

I transferred the few domains that I have on GoDaddy today. After their strong support of SOPA, the recent "reversal" of position wasn't enough to sway me. I'm leaving two domains there that will expire soon, not to be renewed.

I did hit one snag. I have one domain I want to keep that expires within the next seven days. Apparently I can't transfer if that's the case. Any workaround to this that doesn't put money in GoDaddy's pocket?

I work as a hostmaster for a company - nope. Because it can take over that much time for the transfer to complete, it isn't allowed. You'll want to renew it at GoDaddy then transfer, which will renew it for yet another year.

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