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If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services a
by jaimex2 6y ago
If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services at random should be enough reason for anyone.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIt’s definitely not going to help the regulatory scrutiny from various governments.
- bogwog 6y agoStories like this always scare me because they remind me that all of my domain names are on Google domains, including the one I use for my work email address. I gotta migrate out one of these days.
- bb010g 6y agoI've been using NameSilo for a while.
- busymom0 6y agoEpik and Namecheap are pretty good imo. Definitely don't use GoDaddy. EDIT: One can find several instances where users search domain names on GoDaddy and they are available at regular price but when they try to place the order, the domain is no longer available and must be bought at a premium price.
- snotrockets 6y agoEpik is excited to provide services for white supremacists. I'd think thrice if this is a vendor I'd like to have my name associated with.
- busymom0 6y agoHere we go again with the "white supremacist" boogeyman. Not worth discussing this because such discussions never change anyone's minds.
- snotrockets 6y agoIt's only a boogeyman if you're white.
- busymom0 6y agoI don't see how skin color is relevant but since your comment enjoys assigning responsbilities based on skin color - I am a brown immigrant. Divide and conquer has been used for centuries and is what’s being used as usual to get political points. Nothing new about it. Your comment is doing the same racism which you claim to be against. Usually the next response is to call me an Uncle Tom for not falling for the boogeyman and going along with the narrative. Anything which doesn't fit the establishment narrative gets classfied as "white supremacist" and other such labels now a days - just like your comment did. Ps. Won’t be replying further because this discussion is neither relevant nor productive, plus probably borderline breaks HN rules.
- smcl 6y agoWell we are talking about companies with questionable ethical practices. It would be weird to NOT mention the neo-nazi tolerance when suggesting epik in a discussion like this.
- skinkestek 6y agoAs someone who has a lot to lose if nazis ever get back in power: isn't the correct thing to still register their domains and just go to the police with it? Based on my sysadmin background I actively try to know as little about my customers as possible: sure I might become a hero whistleblower but more likely I'll taint myself in various ways.
- smcl 6y ago
- bryan_w 6y agoAnd namecheap protects spammers. I'm pretty sure this is the combo you go with if you want to do borderline illegal things.
- georgyo 6y agoYou can't have it both ways... Google doesn't protect scammers and actively goes after them. But if they flag _you_ incorrectly then your entire legitimate business may be defunct if you have your domains there as well. If you use a service that has the moral high ground, that is all fine and good. But there is chance the service may decide you are immoral. The only way to protect yourself is to use a service that also protects people you don't like.
- busymom0 6y agoI couldn't have said it better. If we refuse to allow speech for those who we don't like, then we will soon be the next silenced. Remember Google came for Tulsi Gabbard by banning her Adsense account and now they are even coming for the anti-establishment classical liberals like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald. Anyone who opposes forever wars is the next "white supremacist" and "russian agent".
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoOkay, but we're in a discussion about avoiding services that randomly ban people, so that sounds like a positive: If they won't even ban white supremacists, they probably won't ban me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- snotrockets 5y agoThe rest of the world might ban you though, as you get to share the same reputation of the assholes your vendor become famous for hosting. Here's a fun things about AUP: they're viral. Once your upstream provider enacts one, you have to follow, or risk being cut off.
- EvilEy3 6y agoKeep up with the same attitude and you'll have only Google to select from.
- busymom0 6y agoDo you use CloudFlare? CloudFlare defends hosting terrorist site for "free speech" reasons: https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle... https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ > the company serves at least seven groups on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hamas. > CEP has sent letters to Cloudflare since February 13, 2017, warning about clients on the service, including Hamas, the Taliban, the PFLP, and the Nordic Resistance Movement. The latest letter, from February 15, 2019, warns of what CEP identified as three pro-ISIS propaganda websites. I do wish CF would apply the same standards to other sites too.
- elzbardico 5y agoWell, so this is a matter for the FBI and the DOJ. If you know of any such case, please report to them. And by the way, another reason private companies should not be in the business of law enforcement is because by cutting service to such sites they could well be damaging ongoing investigations
- snotrockets 5y agoIt's not about legality; it's about societal norms. Visiting the bar known to be a stormfront hangout doesn't make you a white supremacists, but would make most reasonable people not want to associate with you.
- xmprt 6y agoThoughts on Hover? I've been using them without issue for a while but I also never hear about them in the conversation. Is there something I'm missing?
- arkitaip 5y agoHover has the best search interface IMO (it's GETified so you can create a custom search engine in Firefox) but it's expensive, especially if you are constantly buying domains.
- 26965146 6y agoWhy is Epik good? Seen Namecheap around before, but never seen anybody recommend Epik.
- csdreamer7 6y agoLove Namecheap. Used them for years, esp was proud when they joined the campaign to protect Net Neutrality.
- cortic 5y agoNamecheap are not very cheap, and they basically stole a domain from me last year by freezing my account randomly and requiring a cam-show on an unrecognized domain where i was to put my credit card on cam to verify i was myself.. i tried contacting them, as it sounded sketchy, but the deadline ran out before they replied. They refunded some of my money and kept my domain.
- phuff 6y agoDreamhost is also great for domain names.
- edoceo 6y agoporkbun is cheap/good too (but some may throw the China boogeyman at them)
- ARandomerDude 6y agoChinese authoritarian state intervention isn't a bogeyman, it's a real threat first and foremost to its own people, and secondarily to those who do (especially tech) business there. Just because a real threat is widely acknowledged doesn't make it a bogeyman. Bogeymen, after all, are mythical. Chinese tyranny isn't.
- FpUser 6y agoSure, that is why all big gorillas are there. Go talk to them and see how receptive they are. Or try to convince you government to cut all ties.
- ARandomerDude 6y agoI didn't understand this comment at all. Could you please rephrase it?
- ImPostingOnHN 5y agoI think he's trying to say that rights abuses are justified by success (the "gorilla" sized companies patronizing them). No, it doesn't make much sense to me, either.
- spacehunt 6y agoWait, isn't Porkbun based out of Portland?
- wizhi 6y agoHow is Porkbun related to China? I thought they were US based.
- cortic 5y ago
- Lammy 6y agoForgive me for piling on yet-another-unsolicited-registrar-recommendation, but I'm a big fan of NFSN due to their terms of service and feel safe that none of my domains will ever get pulled without very good reason. I've never had that trust tested, but it's at least spelled out: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse
- cy_hauser 6y agoThey haven't been easy to get a response from for me. Tried to ask a question that wasn't in the FAQ and got silence. That was a few years ago. Went elsewhere. Same situation different question last year and again no response. YMMV but I got zero mpg.
- Lammy 6y agoI've contacted them a few times over the years to set/change the glue records for my vanity NS and they were always very responsive. It also cost like a dollar each support instance, but I still haven't spent double-digits contacting support in over a decade of membership :)
- chrisandchris 6y agoSeparating your DNS provider from your domain registry is always a good idea.
- zymhan 5y agoHighly agree. I also prefer to host any actual services behind my domain on a third provider, but at the very least being able to redirect your domains is very helpful.
- mdavidn 6y agoDo it today, not “one of these days.”
- benhurmarcel 6y agoAnother unsolicited recommendation: Gandi.net. I've been quite happy with them.
- teddyh 6y agoGandi had a major outage a mere week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26862162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26862162
- benhurmarcel 5y agoEven Google has outages. Also, that doesn't affect you if you're using them as a registrar and not hosting.
- mindslight 5y agoIn case you don't know, when you transfer a domain name you do not lose the remaining registration time at the your current registrar. You pay the new registrar for an additional year, and the domain transfers over good through the original expiration plus that year - just like if you had renewed it for a year at the current registrar. So if you've been putting it off to "get the timing right", don't!
- nn3 6y agoDo other mobile ad networks have a working appeal system? It seems doubtful because of the same dynamic the article describes. Any working appeal system would teach people how to game them. The ironic part here is that Google is essentially gaming themselves here: creating a feedback loop that encourages people to not use their ad products. I guess the ML algorithms are not clever enough yet(?) to figure things like that out.
- black_puppydog 6y agothe point is to decouple getting false-positive-banned on the ad network from getting banned from the playstore.
- themolecularman 6y ago> If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. Brave instead of Chrome. Duck Duck Go instead of Google. Proton Mail instead of Gmail. The only thing I haven't been able to replace is YouTube. That's a tricky one because it's the content creators that keep me locked into it.
- Larrikin 6y agoWhy a chromium browser instead of Firefox?
- 5560675260 5y agoMozilla is funded by Google - it's a questionable alternative at best.
- colanderman 6y agoMany content creators are starting to move to a Patreon+Twitch model, in addition to YouTube.
- nextlevelwizard 6y agoWorks if you are only delivering live videos. I've never been able to get into Twitch because there is so much dead time without anything interesting happening. Patreon only works if you already have established fan base that is willing to pay for your content. It does not help with discoverability at all. Youtube is still the king of video no matter how you slice it.
- skinkestek 6y ago> Youtube is still the king of video no matter how you slice it. For now. Rumble might or might not break through to mainstream. Same with those fediverse solutions for different reasons. Vimeo already works beautifully and is clean in every way AFAIK.
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- KorematsuFred 6y agoGoogle is pretty good at weeding out bad players and all these bad examples are often on margin. Unfortunately the bad guys are getting more and more sophisticated. Google is not entitled to admit every publisher into their program but needs to provide enough assurance to advertisers that their money will be well spent. Hence they are likely to make mistakes on side of caution. This hurts developers like us but it benefits a business like Google. Sadly, there is no clear quality alternative to Google as of today. I have worked for the adnetworks that boast to be second to Google but in reality are pretty disgusting and filled with crappy advertisers and even shady publishers.
- isolli 6y agoThey could alleviate a lot of pain with a proper appeals process.
- rlayton2 6y agoAgree. I've moved my business email off Google because, despite being a paying customer, I had zero confidence in getting a resolution if my account got banned for any reason. I still have an Android, and a personal gmail etc, but if they go away I can still run my business and I'll recover quickly.