7 ms·

Tell HN: Freenom (the operator of .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf, .gq TLDs) is falling apart

188 points by peppermint_gum 4y ago

1. whois.freenom.com is currently down. 2. Their nameservers are unreliable: https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/vl71se/freenom_servers_are_down/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/vl71se/freenom_ser... 3. Their client area often doesn't work. I can't login right now, and it seems I'm not the only one having issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/zwh7o8/an_unexpected_error_occurred/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/zwh7o8/an_unexpect... 4. Their email address (info@freenom.com) bounces because it forwards to their CEO's gmail and their SMTP server doesn't have a PTR record set: This is the mail system at host smtp06.freenom.net. I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message. The mail system <[redacted]@gmail.com> (expanded from <info@freenom.com>): host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[142.250.141.26] said: 550-5.7.25 [216.75.58.148] The IP address sending this message does not have a 550-5.7.25 PTR record setup, or the corresponding forward DNS entry does not 550-5.7.25 point to the sending IP. As a policy, Gmail does not accept messages 550-5.7.25 from IPs with missing PTR records. Please visit 550-5.7.25 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126#ip-practices for more 550 5.7.25 information.

voytec 4y ago
> email (...) bounces because it forwards to their CEO's gmail and their SMTP server doesn't have a PTR record set Also, this results in this person's address being leaked.
teetertater 4y ago
I’m not surprised, their client area has been getting worse for years. It’s been nearly impossible to change DNS records through their web portal.
peanut-walrus 4y ago
Good.
- kamil3141 4y ago
  Why? Is there something inherently bad about free domains? I’m aware that they were used for scams and eventually some websites (like facebook) just blacklisted them but other TLD could be too.
  - midasuni 4y ago
    Something bad about misusing country codes, but I guess that’s an argument long lost.
    - tialaramex 4y ago
      What's wrong with using the ISO codes here? The ccTLDs belong to the sovereign entity whose code it is, in many cases they let some for-profit outfit exploit this resource and keep some fraction of the resulting income. If the sovereign entity doesn't like how it's run, that's on them to fix it. It's unfortunate if people somehow end up building something important using a name that's ultimately controlled by some tin pot dictatorship, but it's not like you don't know up front.
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        I thought that, by convention, all dictators were "tin pot". And that the republics they governed were always "banana".
        sp332 4y ago
        Banana republics are ones that US corporate interests installed after forcing out more democratic leadership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Guatemala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Guatemala
  - voytec 4y ago
    > Why? Is there something inherently bad about free domains? Not the person you've asked but I've seen many legitimate websites using free eu.org[1] (sub)domains but I believe I've never seen a legit use of tk/ml/ga/gq TLDs. I may have seen the cf one used for some configuration tools though. [1] https://nic.eu.org/ https://nic.eu.org/
YesThatTom2 4y ago
They recently screwed up a transfer if a .to domain I own. They charged an extra $700 and then messed up the process. The domain was useless for 24 hours. Luckily it was only used for non-revenue services. I asked for a post Morten and to refund the $700 and after waiting weeks gave up on both. I figured it was just a fluke.
- causi 4y ago
  What site? In my experience almost every .to website is worth bookmarking. Blocking javascript on as well, but worth bookmarking.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  File a chargeback for the money.
  - sp332 4y ago
    That's a good way to just get your account suspended.
    - 411111111111111 4y ago
      Does it matter at that point? Surely anyone would migrate to a new domain name after that.
psnehanshu 4y ago
.ml could have been a good contender for .ai
cenourinhapt 4y ago
I have been trying to contact them regarding the transfer of a .gq domain of a customer. Their platform is bugging and marking my order as automated: "We were unable to verify you as a human, please try again later." I sent a ticket and they replied two days later, saying that they "will not be able to effect this transfer". I asked the reason and didn't received yet another reply.
- granshaw 4y ago
  Shame that Jimmy.gq isn’t being used - if you get it you get it :)
foepys 4y ago
It seems like that there have been problems for quite a while. There is a sticky thread in the linked subreddit titled "Workarounds for errors when registering new domains with freenom", created 2 years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/hixljd/workarounds_for_errors_when_registering_new/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/hixljd/workarounds...
forgotpwd16 4y ago
>Their client area often doesn't work. I can't login right now Email/password? Haven't had any luck with that 2-3y I've tried Freenom. Google sign-in works fine.
harrego 4y ago
There was a time where Freenom was my go to for getting unique domains for parody webpages but it has since become too unreliable even for this purpose.
DoItToMe81 4y ago
Freenom has been circling the drain since 2017. Every time I hear of them, it just gets worse.
edent 4y ago
I'm relieved I'm not the only one experiencing problems! Last year, they didn't notify me that I had to renew a domain - once it expired, they offered to sell it to me for a ridiculous amount. I was able to email the CEO to get it reinstated. This year, the same happened again. But no response from anyone. I know I'm getting the service that I'm paying for...
- punkspider 4y ago
  Last year, one of my paid domains (.ml) showed up as being free in Freenom dashboard, even though I had 3 months to go. I needed it, and since I know support is unresponsive, I paid for it for another year, because I wanted to avoid any kind of downtime. Support answered after a few days and they corrected the issue. However I didn't notice that now my renewal date was now set to 3 months earlier than when I first paid for the domain. Because of this, along with the fact that I didn't get a renewal notification email this year, and along with the fact that Freenom doesn't seem to have a grace period, my domain expired. I went in my dashboard, paid the invoice, but the domain still isn't mine. I tried to buy it again, but I got an error. I contacted support but couldn't wait for them, so I used another account to buy it (for free), and it seemed to work. After a day or two I got this email from support, warning me against buying the domain with a different account, because I run the risk of getting banned. From time to time, we have to limit free domain registrations and put in place blocks. These blocks can be imposed for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to): - the country from which registrations originate; - the domain names themselves; - the IP addresses from which registrations originate; - the device from which registrations originate; - the use of measures (such as proxies and VPNs) to hide your true location from us; - a history of bad registrations in the account from which registrations originate. You are currently blocked from registering any additional free domains. For reasons of security, we cannot go into the precise reasons for this block. We also cannot make any predictions on when you will be allowed to register new free domains. Please come back in a few days and try to register a domain again. If our systems still do not allow you to register new domains, you'll need to wait longer. Please do NOT register additional accounts or use any other accounts that you may already have, as this will lead to these accounts being banned, possibly indefinitely. Kind regards, Freenom Support Fortunately I don't have a website running on that domain, but I do have a secondary email address for non-critical accounts. This is dumb, I know. I got hooked because it was free, and then I thought it's better to pay ~$10 for a renewal, than have to spend a few days changing emails on many of my accounts. After that email I did just that; I went through most of my accounts and changed emails. I've learned my lesson and I hope to have some foresight in the future.
godzillabrennus 4y ago
I remember when dot TK domains were free… I think they came with the caveat that ads got added to every website you hosted with one… that didn’t last long though. I had a four character TK domain back then.
- ls15 4y ago
  Killed by SSL?
- sxg 4y ago
  downloadmoreram.tk was a classic around 2004
- aequitas 4y ago
  I remember them standing at a hacker event where you would get a free “tosti” (ham and cheese sandwich) with every (also free) registered .tk domain. They had a booth to register domains on the spot. Edit: actually it was the other way around. A free .tk domain with a free tosti https://www.flickr.com/photos/macfriendly/3834697501/in/pool-har2009/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/macfriendly/3834697501/in/pool...
  - ragebol 4y ago
    Would this event be in the Netherlands? A tosti is Dutch for what's called a croque monsieur basically anywhere else.
    - aequitas 4y ago
      Yes, HAR2009.
    - trarmp 4y ago
      > tosti is Dutch for what's called a croque monsieur Just to be a bit pedantic here, but a tosti is probably a lot simpler. It’s a grilled cheese (technically a melt) sandwich, pressed in a (sometimes specialized) tosti-grill. A croque monsieur typically also has ham, bechamel, and is prepared in a pan.
sacrosanct 4y ago
Any way to acquire these ccTLDs (.tk .gq etc) domains without going through the quagmire that is Freenom? There has to be some service that bypasses this kind of gate-keeping. Surprised there's no dedicated NIC for these. http://nic.gq/ http://nic.gq/ doesn't even resolve.
- sshine 4y ago
  > Surprised there's no dedicated NIC for these. http://nic.gq/ http://nic.gq/ doesn't even resolve. Sounds to me Freenom is the NIC, and the reason they're not present on nic.gq, etc., is that they're not very professional, and that their lack of pressionality is correlated with them falling apart right now.
  - dan15 4y ago
    That's right. The 'official' NIC URL for .tk is http://www.dot.tk/ http://www.dot.tk/, but this is ran by Freenom. Similarly, the official URL for .gq is http://www.dominio.gq http://www.dominio.gq, which initially looks different, but it has a "powered by Freenom" logo at the bottom right.
hexagonwin 4y ago
I have a .ga domain on Freenom, under '12 Months Free'. I had been renewing it and using the domain for 3 years now. After initial register I switched the DNS settings to CloudFlare and is using dash.cloudflare.com DDNS settings to manipulate CNAME records. Now the domain is pretty important to me and I'm willing to pay money, but is there any good way to migrate my domain to a stable, trusty domain registar like Namecheap? I'm pretty scared of losing this domain name..
nylonstrung 4y ago
I believe they have been out of compliance with ICANN and it might result in their TLDs being handed to another registrar
- duskwuff 4y ago
  ICANN doesn't have jurisdiction over ccTLDs.
KronisLV 4y ago
I actually used a .tk domain for a forum for some university friends when I was still busy with my studies. It worked well enough and was free, however I was asked for money to renew the supposedly free domain. That's when I decided that it's easier for me to just manage my domains with NameCheap or another solution where I already had some other paid domains (maybe to just put the forum under a subdomain of one of those). Apart from the .tk domains being free at the time, there was nothing else going for the platform in my eyes. Note that I did pay for a year for that particular domain because it was cheap, so the transition would be smoother - a redirect at the web server level, where is you open the site through the old domain, you're redirected to the new one.
notpushkin 4y ago
I think the biggest Freenom domain I've seen lately is https://mastodon.ml/ https://mastodon.ml/, a big Russian-speaking Mastodon instance. I'm not sure though if they still use Freenom for the registration – I'll go ping the admin.
- dan15 4y ago
  Freenom own the TLD so you don't really have a choice. Every other registrar that offers the TLD is just going via Freenom anyways, and any major issues that affect Freenom will affect the entire TLD.
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    If Freenom the registry starts having problems then yeah. Right now it's only Freenom the registrar I think (they're required to operate as separate entities I believe, although that might not help given the level they're integrated into each other).
quickthrower2 4y ago
Note to future self: stick to .com
cheri9 4y ago
[dead]
dangravell 4y ago
So it's now twelve days later and DNS problems appear to be ongoing. There's a Reddit thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/109nr4z/is_freenom_dead/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/109nr4z/is_freenom... I can log into the client area and submit a ticket, but no reply as expected (I noticed the previous owner of the service I operate had to wait half a month for a reply a previous time this happened). I have emailed the Gabon authorities (my interest is in a .ga domain) but don't really expect a reply. Anyone know a way where I can decisively show this is a Freenom problem? If I do a dig +trace it works for me, but might that depend on the DNS server I'm sending the request through?

voytec 4y ago

> email (...) bounces because it forwards to their CEO's gmail and their SMTP server doesn't have a PTR record set Also, this results in this person's address being leaked.

teetertater 4y ago

I’m not surprised, their client area has been getting worse for years. It’s been nearly impossible to change DNS records through their web portal.

peanut-walrus 4y ago

Good.

kamil3141 4y ago
Why? Is there something inherently bad about free domains? I’m aware that they were used for scams and eventually some websites (like facebook) just blacklisted them but other TLD could be too.
- midasuni 4y ago
  Something bad about misusing country codes, but I guess that’s an argument long lost.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    What's wrong with using the ISO codes here? The ccTLDs belong to the sovereign entity whose code it is, in many cases they let some for-profit outfit exploit this resource and keep some fraction of the resulting income. If the sovereign entity doesn't like how it's run, that's on them to fix it. It's unfortunate if people somehow end up building something important using a name that's ultimately controlled by some tin pot dictatorship, but it's not like you don't know up front.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      I thought that, by convention, all dictators were "tin pot". And that the republics they governed were always "banana".
      - sp332 4y ago
        Banana republics are ones that US corporate interests installed after forcing out more democratic leadership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Guatemala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Guatemala
- voytec 4y ago
  > Why? Is there something inherently bad about free domains? Not the person you've asked but I've seen many legitimate websites using free eu.org[1] (sub)domains but I believe I've never seen a legit use of tk/ml/ga/gq TLDs. I may have seen the cf one used for some configuration tools though. [1] https://nic.eu.org/ https://nic.eu.org/

YesThatTom2 4y ago

They recently screwed up a transfer if a .to domain I own. They charged an extra $700 and then messed up the process. The domain was useless for 24 hours. Luckily it was only used for non-revenue services. I asked for a post Morten and to refund the $700 and after waiting weeks gave up on both. I figured it was just a fluke.

causi 4y ago
What site? In my experience almost every .to website is worth bookmarking. Blocking javascript on as well, but worth bookmarking.
Nextgrid 4y ago
File a chargeback for the money.
- sp332 4y ago
  That's a good way to just get your account suspended.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    Does it matter at that point? Surely anyone would migrate to a new domain name after that.

psnehanshu 4y ago

.ml could have been a good contender for .ai

cenourinhapt 4y ago

I have been trying to contact them regarding the transfer of a .gq domain of a customer. Their platform is bugging and marking my order as automated: "We were unable to verify you as a human, please try again later." I sent a ticket and they replied two days later, saying that they "will not be able to effect this transfer". I asked the reason and didn't received yet another reply.

granshaw 4y ago
Shame that Jimmy.gq isn’t being used - if you get it you get it :)

foepys 4y ago

It seems like that there have been problems for quite a while. There is a sticky thread in the linked subreddit titled "Workarounds for errors when registering new domains with freenom", created 2 years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/hixljd/workarounds_for_errors_when_registering_new/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/hixljd/workarounds...

forgotpwd16 4y ago

>Their client area often doesn't work. I can't login right now Email/password? Haven't had any luck with that 2-3y I've tried Freenom. Google sign-in works fine.

harrego 4y ago

There was a time where Freenom was my go to for getting unique domains for parody webpages but it has since become too unreliable even for this purpose.

DoItToMe81 4y ago

Freenom has been circling the drain since 2017. Every time I hear of them, it just gets worse.

edent 4y ago

I'm relieved I'm not the only one experiencing problems! Last year, they didn't notify me that I had to renew a domain - once it expired, they offered to sell it to me for a ridiculous amount. I was able to email the CEO to get it reinstated. This year, the same happened again. But no response from anyone. I know I'm getting the service that I'm paying for...

punkspider 4y ago
Last year, one of my paid domains (.ml) showed up as being free in Freenom dashboard, even though I had 3 months to go. I needed it, and since I know support is unresponsive, I paid for it for another year, because I wanted to avoid any kind of downtime. Support answered after a few days and they corrected the issue. However I didn't notice that now my renewal date was now set to 3 months earlier than when I first paid for the domain. Because of this, along with the fact that I didn't get a renewal notification email this year, and along with the fact that Freenom doesn't seem to have a grace period, my domain expired. I went in my dashboard, paid the invoice, but the domain still isn't mine. I tried to buy it again, but I got an error. I contacted support but couldn't wait for them, so I used another account to buy it (for free), and it seemed to work. After a day or two I got this email from support, warning me against buying the domain with a different account, because I run the risk of getting banned. From time to time, we have to limit free domain registrations and put in place blocks. These blocks can be imposed for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to): - the country from which registrations originate; - the domain names themselves; - the IP addresses from which registrations originate; - the device from which registrations originate; - the use of measures (such as proxies and VPNs) to hide your true location from us; - a history of bad registrations in the account from which registrations originate. You are currently blocked from registering any additional free domains. For reasons of security, we cannot go into the precise reasons for this block. We also cannot make any predictions on when you will be allowed to register new free domains. Please come back in a few days and try to register a domain again. If our systems still do not allow you to register new domains, you'll need to wait longer. Please do NOT register additional accounts or use any other accounts that you may already have, as this will lead to these accounts being banned, possibly indefinitely. Kind regards, Freenom Support Fortunately I don't have a website running on that domain, but I do have a secondary email address for non-critical accounts. This is dumb, I know. I got hooked because it was free, and then I thought it's better to pay ~$10 for a renewal, than have to spend a few days changing emails on many of my accounts. After that email I did just that; I went through most of my accounts and changed emails. I've learned my lesson and I hope to have some foresight in the future.

godzillabrennus 4y ago

I remember when dot TK domains were free… I think they came with the caveat that ads got added to every website you hosted with one… that didn’t last long though. I had a four character TK domain back then.

ls15 4y ago
Killed by SSL?
sxg 4y ago
downloadmoreram.tk was a classic around 2004
aequitas 4y ago
I remember them standing at a hacker event where you would get a free “tosti” (ham and cheese sandwich) with every (also free) registered .tk domain. They had a booth to register domains on the spot. Edit: actually it was the other way around. A free .tk domain with a free tosti https://www.flickr.com/photos/macfriendly/3834697501/in/pool-har2009/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/macfriendly/3834697501/in/pool...
- ragebol 4y ago
  Would this event be in the Netherlands? A tosti is Dutch for what's called a croque monsieur basically anywhere else.
  - aequitas 4y ago
    Yes, HAR2009.
  - trarmp 4y ago
    > tosti is Dutch for what's called a croque monsieur Just to be a bit pedantic here, but a tosti is probably a lot simpler. It’s a grilled cheese (technically a melt) sandwich, pressed in a (sometimes specialized) tosti-grill. A croque monsieur typically also has ham, bechamel, and is prepared in a pan.

sacrosanct 4y ago

Any way to acquire these ccTLDs (.tk .gq etc) domains without going through the quagmire that is Freenom? There has to be some service that bypasses this kind of gate-keeping. Surprised there's no dedicated NIC for these. http://nic.gq/ http://nic.gq/ doesn't even resolve.

sshine 4y ago
> Surprised there's no dedicated NIC for these. http://nic.gq/ http://nic.gq/ doesn't even resolve. Sounds to me Freenom is the NIC, and the reason they're not present on nic.gq, etc., is that they're not very professional, and that their lack of pressionality is correlated with them falling apart right now.
- dan15 4y ago
  That's right. The 'official' NIC URL for .tk is http://www.dot.tk/ http://www.dot.tk/, but this is ran by Freenom. Similarly, the official URL for .gq is http://www.dominio.gq http://www.dominio.gq, which initially looks different, but it has a "powered by Freenom" logo at the bottom right.

hexagonwin 4y ago

I have a .ga domain on Freenom, under '12 Months Free'. I had been renewing it and using the domain for 3 years now. After initial register I switched the DNS settings to CloudFlare and is using dash.cloudflare.com DDNS settings to manipulate CNAME records. Now the domain is pretty important to me and I'm willing to pay money, but is there any good way to migrate my domain to a stable, trusty domain registar like Namecheap? I'm pretty scared of losing this domain name..

nylonstrung 4y ago

I believe they have been out of compliance with ICANN and it might result in their TLDs being handed to another registrar

duskwuff 4y ago
ICANN doesn't have jurisdiction over ccTLDs.

KronisLV 4y ago

I actually used a .tk domain for a forum for some university friends when I was still busy with my studies. It worked well enough and was free, however I was asked for money to renew the supposedly free domain. That's when I decided that it's easier for me to just manage my domains with NameCheap or another solution where I already had some other paid domains (maybe to just put the forum under a subdomain of one of those). Apart from the .tk domains being free at the time, there was nothing else going for the platform in my eyes. Note that I did pay for a year for that particular domain because it was cheap, so the transition would be smoother - a redirect at the web server level, where is you open the site through the old domain, you're redirected to the new one.

notpushkin 4y ago

I think the biggest Freenom domain I've seen lately is https://mastodon.ml/ https://mastodon.ml/, a big Russian-speaking Mastodon instance. I'm not sure though if they still use Freenom for the registration – I'll go ping the admin.

dan15 4y ago
Freenom own the TLD so you don't really have a choice. Every other registrar that offers the TLD is just going via Freenom anyways, and any major issues that affect Freenom will affect the entire TLD.
- notpushkin 4y ago
  If Freenom the registry starts having problems then yeah. Right now it's only Freenom the registrar I think (they're required to operate as separate entities I believe, although that might not help given the level they're integrated into each other).

quickthrower2 4y ago

Note to future self: stick to .com

cheri9 4y ago

[dead]

dangravell 4y ago

So it's now twelve days later and DNS problems appear to be ongoing. There's a Reddit thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/109nr4z/is_freenom_dead/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freenom/comments/109nr4z/is_freenom... I can log into the client area and submit a ticket, but no reply as expected (I noticed the previous owner of the service I operate had to wait half a month for a reply a previous time this happened). I have emailed the Gabon authorities (my interest is in a .ga domain) but don't really expect a reply. Anyone know a way where I can decisively show this is a Freenom problem? If I do a dig +trace it works for me, but might that depend on the DNS server I'm sending the request through?