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Ask HN: Which domain registrars have superb security and service?
Hearing about the recent BitInstant attack[0] has made me wonder about my own choice of DNS host. I've been happy with them for years, but I wonder who people recommend.
I have a dozen or so domains. I'm looking for a host with excellent security and great customer service. I also need:
* Basic value-added web services (specifically, redirecting all HTTP requests from one domain to another)
* User-friendly domain configuration (I'm not a network admin)
* SMTP hosting with a small buffer (50MB is enough; I move my email into local storage frequently)
* Basic value-added email services (automatic forwarding, out-of-office responses)
* Reasonable pricing
Any recommendations?
[0] http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html
- mschuster91 14y agoHi, if you're going for just DNS+excellent service, go for EPAG (epag.net). They're dead cheap and have a fine customer support. Payment via PayPal and credit card, as well as european bank transfer.
- dangrossman 14y agoThe best providers for all those services are different. Your domain registrar is not going to be an expert at managing relationships with e-mail providers on a daily basis, which is what guarantees high deliverability at the good e-mail hosts (does it matter how little space you need if some of your mails end up in spam folders instead of inboxes?). The best e-mail hosts are not domain registrars. The best registrars are not the best DNS hosts; it's a value-add to increase average ticket price during checkout, not their core competency. If you really want it all in one, then you have to be satisfied with mediocrity I think. If you want excellent security and great service for each of those services, then go to a company where that service is their core competency. Host your DNS with your web host or a company like DNSMadeEasy. Host your mail with Rackspace Mail (formerly MailTrust), where you get a 100% uptime SLA, daily backups and 24/7/365 phone/chat/email support. What registrar you use doesn't matter as much since the service they provide is so fundamentally basic -- updating tiny text records in a database -- there's not much that can go wrong. I use Namecheap because of their history of doing right by customers in the face of legal threats where other registrars turn over information and even domain ownership without a court order.
- jdlshore 14y agoActually, I misspoke. I'm looking for IMAP hosting, not SMTP. (Although I obviously will need to send email as well.) Basically, just simple email for single-person use.
- devonbarrett 14y agoRackspace is where you should look then, cheap and reliable.
- philtar 14y agoI'm gonna chime in and say Marcaria is the worst. 1) The interface is complicated 2) They store the password in cleartext (I've told them how big of a deal that is 5 times now and I've been ignored every time). 3) My friend registered a domain there and didn't get a confirmation email. He was like why is it not working? I said I don't know let me try to register the domain. Next day, I get a confirmation email and he gets an email that the domain he requested is not available (even though he registered it a few hours before me).
- subsection1h 14y agoI've spent tens of thousands of dollars on domains (for businesses, not hording), and I use Name.com because they support two-factor authentication: https://www.name.com/services/namesafe https://www.name.com/services/namesafe I can't comment on their customer service because I've never needed it. I don't use Name.com for email. I've never used a domain registrar for email. I use a family account at FastMail: https://www.fastmail.fm/signup/family.html https://www.fastmail.fm/signup/family.html
- nonamegiven 14y agoHaven't spend tens of thousands, but I have a similar experience. I use pairnic.com for registration and dns. I don't know if their customer service is good or bad because I've never needed it, but I suspect it's excellent. I use fastmail.fm for both SMTP and IMAP. I've never needed their customer service, it just works. I don't use my gmail account, but I keep it in part for a backup SMTP, although I've seen gmail SMTP go down and I've never seen fastmail go down. I suppose they must have and I just wasn't doing anything active at the time.