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Is it known that domain registrars are better than GMail in this regard? Not asking sarcastically, but I had my domain taken over by registrar(not released to p

• komali2 4y ago
  But what's the alternative? Does SMTP even work without a domain? I dipped my toes in this far enough to connect a custom domain to a mailbox hosted by bluehost so I don't know too much but I always seek to separate from Google et al wherever possible. I thought the buck stops at DNS and domain registration though, short of like, that gnu internet project I vaguely remember, what's the alternative?
  • thinkloop 4y ago
  • csande17 4y ago
    You can theoretically send email to an IP address directly, like someone@[127.0.0.1], but I imagine a lot of the programs and websites you'd want to use don't know that. And you're still left with the problem of needing to get that IP address from someone who can arbitrarily take it away from you.
  • justsomehnguy 4y ago
    > Does SMTP even work without a domain It is, but don't expecting people understand what komali@13.55.66.77 is a perfectly valid address, nor the anti-spam systems or designers of web/mail apps and services.
• yuvalr1 4y ago
  Sounds bad. Is there anything we can do about it? What is the most reliable domain registrar?
  • SXX 4y ago
    So far Gandi was posted as reliable company and over last 10 years I had no issues with them. One good feature is that you dont have to be owner to renew domain name registered with them. So in case you temporary lose access to your account you can still pay for domains. They also allow to keep credit balance for auto renew. I really didnt have much of issues to talk about so no idea how good is their support at solving them, but at least I have peace of mind when it comes to renewal.
    • tailspin2019 4y ago
      FWIW I just had a support ticket open with them in the last week and they were very responsive and helpful.
    • yuvalr1 4y ago
      Thanks! I'll remember them next time I need a domain
• readsadhours 4y ago
  People from the UK that had an .eu domain were unable to renew it after brexit.
  • Roark66 4y ago
    Is this really a thing? I had a .eu domain for years. I only let it go this year(it was on annual renewal) . My registered address was and is still in UK and I never had any trouble from my registrar(eurodns) about the EU domain. Or do they do it based on the payment method? (I might have used an EU cc to renew)?
    • cranekam 4y ago
      Apparently it is true: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/registering-and-renewing-eu-domain-names-in-the-uk https://www.gov.uk/guidance/registering-and-renewing-eu-doma... It seems .eu domains are more or less only available to people who live in the EU/EEA, hold EU/EEA citizenship or businesses that conduct business in the region.
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        And that was always so; it's not "more-or-less", you've never been able to have a .eu domain unless you "belong to" the EU, for various values of "belong to". Always read the T&C.
  • drooopy 4y ago
    The difference here is that people from the UK voted for losing the right to renew their .eu domains.
    • feanaro 4y ago
      Not all of them did. Domains shouldn't be related to citizenship anyway.
      • hypertele-Xii 4y ago
• highwaylights 4y ago
  I see this advice (that you should use a custom domain) and it makes me a bit hesitant in that I’m not sure I necessarily trust a registrar more than I trust Google not to allow phishing/hijack/deletion. That said there’s really two issues if you seperate out the inbox - access to new emails, and access to the historical emails you’ve accumulated. The second can be partially helped by downloading all mail + attachments from the server and keeping a backup. The first is more complicated either way you look at it.
  • psychphysic 4y ago
    I find thinking about the whole thing far too stressful. Especially now that so many of my photos and documents are 'backed up' to Google photos and drive. Balancing the risk of these black swan events is beyond me. Why ever would Google ban me? But they might. Why ever would Tutanota mess up my private domain? Or ban me? But they might!
• pmontra 4y ago
  Anybody can read my email, it's cleartext after all. ISP, registar, etc. I pay for my email as part of my yearly domain fee: 2 domains (personal and self employed work), 2 registars. I download them over POP3, store them locally in Thunderbird, backup them locally (encrypted disk) and remotely (duplicity, can't even remember, too early in the morning.) This protects me against some attacks, not against everything. The only online services I really care about are banks. Everything else is disposable. I call my customers, give them a new Google and AWS account, that's it. Or ask them to create an account for me until I sort out the problem. Protecting against state level actors is a different thing. No plans for that. After all they can knock my door and deal with me in person.
  • jesterson 4y ago
    How your registrar can read your email?
    • cranekam 4y ago
      The registrar could only read email if they also accept mail for the domain in question.
    • pmontra 4y ago
      They are the ones that also run the SMTP and POP3 / IMAP servers for my domains. Selling a few GB mailbox together with a domain is pretty common.
• sonofhans 4y ago
  I've used https://www.pairnic.com https://www.pairnic.com for ~15 years, and they're lovely. I've had domains expire several times, and they've never given me grief. They're small enough to give a shit.
• forgotmypw17 4y ago
  Both are risky, but at least you can decouple your address from your storage. If something happens to your gmail, you lose both your address and your storage at once. If it is your domain, you presumably still have access to your host (which may just be gmail). And if you lose access to your host, at least you can still redirect your domain somewhere else. Nothing is foolproof, but you can split one large dependency into two smaller dependencies.
• rglullis 4y ago
  Now you know why there are still some people that still take "web3" seriously. It's the only system where you are not at the mercy of some external entity to be always benevolent. Seriously, ENS and Handshake alone should be enough of a reason to silence all of those who keep repeating "but blockchain has no real world applications".
  • denton-scratch 4y ago
    What does Ethereum Name Service have to do with email domains? How does one receive email from e.g. one's bank, at a Handshake domain? The "real world" in which Handshake and ENS are useful isn't the world I'm living in.
    • LadyCailin 4y ago
      I’m not necessarily defending web3, but you’re asking the wrong question. Your same question could have been asked about email in general in the early aughts. But clearly, mass adoption happened, and the calculus changed. Sure, your statement is strictly correct, but completely uninteresting.
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        What question did I ask that was "the wrong question"? I thought both the questions I put were rhetorical. Let's try: "What does email have to do with email domains?" "How does one receive email from e.g. one's bank, at an email domain?" No, I don't think my questions could equally have been asked about email in the early aughts (nor at any other time - those rewritten questions don't make sense). Mass adoption had already happened by the early aughts; email was adopted universally in the corporate world in the mid-nineties. Of course, what is interesting to you is your business.
    • rglullis 4y ago
      All you need is to have DNS servers reading ENS' equivalent of MX records. Failing that, you can even have that implemented at the email client or OS level.
• owl57 4y ago
  Yep. For the last month, I have been exclusively giving out GMail as "my personal email" instead of <personal domain>.ru, but it was more of an emotional thing. Thinking of it, I genuinely don't know which of these is less reliable in the long run for a Russian citizen: GMail, Russian registrar or a foreign registrar for <personal domain>.<some other TLD>.
  • AlecSchueler 4y ago
    And everyone in the UK with .eu addresses suddenly had to switch or find addresses abroad to use a couple of years ago.
• msh 4y ago
  Nothings perfect. I think if you use a reputable register with support and a paid email host with support you have less risk than a gmail where they can lock you out and you cant do password recovery because some filter triggered. I would add two other things. - Prepay the domain for a large number of years (10y) to avoid billing issues. - Keep a local copy of your email on atleast one machine (either just in a desktop client, or do regular exports).
• KolmogorovComp 4y ago
  To reduce that risk you can always use multiple domains from separate registrars that redirect to the same address. Especially if you can use service X to restore access on service Y (which is often the case), make sure those use independent domains. As often increased security comes at the expense of convenience and cost, but it can be worth it.
• belorn 4y ago
  If you change your security model from gmail to a registrar you need to redo the risk assessment, or rely on someone else to do that risk assessment for your (i.e. base your decision on third-party recommendations/best practices). A free service is covered under very different customer protection than a paid product, but your country of origin matter as does the country where the registrar is located and the country where the registry is located (registry is generally the upstream provider of the registrar). It would be difficult legal fight when the TLD is .eu, operated by Belgium company (EURid), with the domain registered by a American company (Namecheap), while you the customer is located in Russia. Your bank could also in theory be a forth country involved. If you want legal protection as a domain owner the best advice is generally to use a cTLD of your own country with registrar located also within your own borders. It naturally depend a bit on how stable the country is and how good the customer protection laws. I also strongly recommend against registrars where responsibility is on you to renew the domain, rather than those that have contracts that run continuously until cancellation (who will also bill you if you fail the payment). For domain names it is a better model for both the customer and registrar, in contrast for a subscription service like a news paper. It is a bad default to automatically loose the domain name.
  • behringer 4y ago
    Can I get a recommendation on a service that bills?
    • belorn 4y ago
      If you live in Sweden, yes. Outside of that area I don't know. I can only guess that enforcing bills is something that is much harder once you pass national lines.
• eli 4y ago
  Yes. Not all registrars are equally well run, but google accounts get closed for unclear reasons with no appeals all the time.