Ask HN: People with custom domain names: what's the plan if you lose the domain?

10 points by md5person 5 years ago | 6 comments

There's a thread right now on the front-page, titled "Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24245817). Many on this thread are advocating for using a custom domain name, to front email communications (and thus reduce your dependency on services such as gmail).

People who currently do this (or those that plan on doing it): what is your plan in-case you end up losing the domain name (either temporarily, or otherwise)? How do you prepare for this, reduce the risk, etc?

Losing your domain name can happen due to any number of reasons: hacked account (at the registrar), social engineering, etc. There can also be issues with registrars going bankrupt, increasing fees (see recent dot-org case [1]), laws changing (especially with ccTLDs - see the dot-EU case with British citizens post Brexit [2]) and much more...

[1] - https://www.eff.org/press/releases/org-domain-registry-sale-ethos-capital-rejected-stunning-victory-public-interest

[2] - https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit-notice/

stephenr 5 years ago |

Use a vanilla extension (I have .com’s and .net‘S).

Use a registrar that takes security seriously.

Take security seriously yourself.

Pay the renewal fees.

That’s it.

joezydeco 5 years ago | |

And find a registrar that offers a privacy option, hide your contact info from Whois.

jolmg 5 years ago |

Use an address with the domain of your paid email provider for site sign-ups. The email provider is going to have more to lose than you if control over the domain is lost.

Use a custom domain for person-to-person communications. This allows you to change email providers later without having to make sure all your contacts know you've changed your address, by just informing the sites you're signed up at.

The risk from losing your personal domain then is just someone impersonating you to your personal contacts (if they know them) or site users if you're hosting anything at that domain.

thepra 5 years ago |

No plan, I basically pay for owning and keeping a domain up and functioning, it's up to the domain hostel hoster to take care of security and the main thing account security that I did was to use a very long and computer generated password through my password manager.

replwoacause 5 years ago |

Not remotely worried about it. I have had my personal domain for almost 20 years and renew it 10 years at a time.

zeestar 5 years ago |

Move on and start over ️ It’s just a domain name, just an email, it’s nothing important: mostly spam and dumb clients.