Great 2023 Registrar Search

From lathama
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The Search Begins

Investigating a new registrar after Google Domains was sold to Squarspace. I started at https://www.icann.org/en/accredited-registrars and then sorted though the data.

First Pass
  • Excluded registrars listed as USA with International telephone support numbers
  • Excluded registrars with humans listed as the contact
  • Excluded duplicates by comparing phone numbers
  • Excluded entries with empty fields
  • Excluded entries with non-loading websites or only bundled hosting services

This generated a very small list ~30

Second Pass
  • Excluded entries that did not offer pricing on website (example, Pairnetworks only had pricing on there mobile website)
  • Excluded entries with confusing websites (Title, logo, and or footer for different companies)
Conclusion

After some time I landed on https://porkbun.com/ and am planning to move one domain to them to test. I was really amazed how many registrars failed these simple tests.

Porkbun (failed)

  • 2023-08-15 Porkbun has been unable to answer a single support question about why they change TTLs.
  • Times below should be in MT aka USA Mountain Time
Andrew Latham Aug 1, 2023 at 8:38 AM

I recently transfered in a domain and set the TTL to 3600 for the default A and AAAA record. Upon checking I found that they were set to the default. Will this change to 3600 at some point in the future or is there an issue?

Domain: gringomalvado.com

$ dig +noall +answer +ttlid @fortaleza.ns.porkbun.com gringomalvado.com A
gringomalvado.com. 600 IN A 198.58.127.69

Porkbun support Aug 1, 2023, 3:15 PM

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out. Our nameservers will always use a TTL of 600 for DNS records, which should not typically cause any issues. Is something not working as expected with those records?

Andrew Latham Aug 1, 2023, 3:59 PM

Help me understand what you are saying.

I set the following:
*  (@origin) gringomalvado.com 3600 A 198.58.127.69
*  (@origin) gringomalvado.com 3600 AAAA 2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
* www.gringomalvado.com 3600 CNAME lathama.net
* ipv6.gringomalvado.com 7200 AAAA 2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55

$ dig +noall +answer +ttlid @fortaleza.ns.porkbun.com gringomalvado.com A
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      A       198.58.127.69
$ dig +noall +answer +ttlid @fortaleza.ns.porkbun.com gringomalvado.com AAAA
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
$ dig +noall +answer +ttlid @fortaleza.ns.porkbun.com www.gringomalvado.com CNAME
www.gringomalvado.com.  3600    IN      CNAME   lathama.net.
$ dig +noall +answer +ttlid @fortaleza.ns.porkbun.com ipv6.gringomalvado.com AAAA     
ipv6.gringomalvado.com. 7200    IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55

So you are saying that a TTL of 600 is used for all "Origin" entries regardless of what the website interface says? Is this documented in a KB somewhere?

Porkbun support Tue, Aug 1, 5:39 PM

Hello,

Thanks for getting back to us. Looks like I was mistaken on this. I know we had this limitation for a while after we gad switched to new nameservers and did not realize it had been fixed. Sorry for the incorrect response.

From doing some testing on this end, I'm not seeing any delay in the TTL updating, though it's possible there could be some propagation delay if the record was initially added with the default TTL, though I'm not seeing any indication of it being set to that when a different TTL is manually set. It looks like the correct TTL is now resolving, is that correct?

If you wanted to troubleshoot this further, adding a test TXT record with a non-default TTL to see how it behaves could be interesting.

Hope this helps. Please let us know if you need any further assistance.

Andrew Latham Wed, Aug 2, 11:26 AM

Porkbun ttl.png 

Gringomalvado.com is a test domain before I transfer others. The TTL of 600 is not a problem for me, I am just looking for some yes/no answers.

Assuming my domain is configured as https://lathama.net/images/2/23/Porkbun_ttl.png

1. Is this documented or expected behaviour to not respect TTL set in the UI for Origin entries?
2. Does Porkbun set all Origin entries to a TTL of 600?

Porkbun support Tue, Aug 8, 11:02 AM 

Hello,

Thanks for your patience. Our nameservers support TTLs of 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1hr, 2hrs, 5hrs, 12hrs or 24hrs. Hope this helps! Let us know if you have any DNS records that don't seem to working with these TTLs and we'll take a look.

Andrew Latham Tue, Aug 8, 11:39 AM

I would like to escalate as my questions are not being answered.

Porkbun support Aug 8, 2023, 3:35 PM

Hello,

Apologies if we didn't address your question. We did escalate this which led to us providing the supported TTLs for DNS records on Porkbun. 600 seconds is the default and the shortest supported DNS record on our end, but you should be able to use any of the TTLs I mentioned previously.

To clarify, are you contacting us about the A and AAAA record entries for gringomalvado.com?
  • At this point I gave up and decided to move to another registrar. DNS hosting is not required for a registrar but a successful support ticket process is.

One last test before moving domain 

lathama@lappy:~$ dig +short gringomalvado.com NS | xargs -I x dig +noall +answer +ttlid gringomalvado.com @x
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      A       198.58.127.69
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      A       198.58.127.69
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      A       198.58.127.69
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      A       198.58.127.69
lathama@lappy:~$ dig +short gringomalvado.com NS | xargs -I x dig +noall +answer +ttlid ipv6.gringomalvado.com AAAA @x
ipv6.gringomalvado.com. 600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
ipv6.gringomalvado.com. 600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
ipv6.gringomalvado.com. 600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
ipv6.gringomalvado.com. 600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
lathama@lappy:~$ dig +short gringomalvado.com NS | xargs -I x dig +noall +answer +ttlid www.gringomalvado.com cname @x
www.gringomalvado.com.  600     IN      CNAME   lathama.net.
www.gringomalvado.com.  600     IN      CNAME   lathama.net.
www.gringomalvado.com.  600     IN      CNAME   lathama.net.
www.gringomalvado.com.  600     IN      CNAME   lathama.net.
lathama@lappy:~$ dig +short gringomalvado.com NS | xargs -I x dig +noall +answer +ttlid gringomalvado.com AAAA @x
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
gringomalvado.com.      600     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fed1:fe55
lathama@lappy:~$

Registrar search part 2

  1. Get CSV from https://www.icann.org/en/accredited-registrars?page=1&country=United%20States%20of%20America&view-all=true
  2. Starting number of registrars 1996
  3. Remove obvious duplicates keeping the lowest ID number
  4. Current count 598
  5. Remove all entries with name or numbers outside the USA (I don't really care about where they are, I am just removing the non-USA support entries)
  6. Current count 590
  7. Remove the private label Network Solutions entries
  8. Current count 237
  9. Remove DropCatch duplicates
  10. Current count 187
  11. Remove Enameco duplicates
  12. Current count 144
  13. Remove duplicates based on support phone number and some missed non+1 country codes
  14. Current count 94
  15. Remove obvious no-go entries (google, microsoft) and start testing to see if listed website opens
  16. Remove sites with no pricing or parking/hosting only sites
  17. Remove sites with broken TLS
  18. Current count 30
  19. Make a stiff alcoholic drink
  20. Remove any entry with a personal email address as the support contact
  21. Current count 25
  22. Remove human contacts
  23. Current count 12
  24. Remove entries that can not register the TLDs I need priced under $25 per year
  25. Have a reasonable response to `dig +noall +answer domainname NS`
  26. Check that the renewal price is not much larger the registration price
"Registrar Name","IANA Number","Public Contact","Link"
"Sav.com, LLC",609,"Sav Support +1 (888) 580-8790 support@sav.com","https://www.sav.com/"
"NamePal.com, LLC",997,"Registrar Manager +1 4073293297 support@namepal.com","http://www.namepal.com"

I am sure that people will ask where is "Registrar X" They got filtered out.

namepal AKA NameSilo

I have transferred a two domains to Namesilo. One is on hold as I transferred it to porkbun above but the other transferred very fast.

  • UI works and has all the settings. Parts of the UI are new and some are old.
  • Documentation about TTLs in the help. Sav.com did not have TTL in their helpdesk
  • Has email forwarding! (sav.com did not actually have it, they suggest you use a 3rd pary for $)
  • https://www.namesilo.com
  • DNS records answer to match the configuration interface (it is sad that this is such an exciting find)
  • Purchase, transfer and renewal pricing is sane. I think the transfer price is $1 cheaper on most TLDs

2023-10-02

Saturday 2023-09-30 a domain should have transferred to namesilo but porkbun made it a bit harder. Namesilo has support information explaining that other registers may hide the transfer approval process. The following email is what I got: 

Transfer Out Notification

Attention: Andrew

Domain: gringomalvado.com

Porkbun determined on 2023-10-01 that you have requested a transfer to another domain name registrar. Please know that you do not need to transfer your domain in order to host it elsewhere. If you are trying to host your domain elsewhere and would like to keep your domain registered with Porkbun please cancel the transfer immediately and contact support. Are you getting a better price? Let us know! We usually have the best transfer prices so something might be wrong.

If you want to proceed with this transfer, you do not need to respond to this message. If you did not request the transfer or wish to cancel, please contact us immediately by:

sending an email to support@porkbun.com

Pending transfers can also be cancelled from within your account by clicking on the gear icon next to the domain and selecting "Registrar Transfer".

If we do not hear from you the transfer will proceed.


Thank you,
The Porkbun Team

What I found is that there was an option to approve the transfer in the porkbun accounts settings. At no point in the email did they mention that I can approve the transfer by doing this.


Criteria Summary

I am working to share and describe my criteria better

  1. Complete information in ICANN database
  2. Support phone number is in the +1 country code and not a duplicate of a lower numbered registrar
  3. The listed website loads
  4. They sell domains registration alone without bundling
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