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Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#11

Post by nickjj »

zackbloom wrote: post #10
nickjj wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently use NameSilo. Don't forget they also offer free whois privacy for life. My only complaint with them is their DNS records are only updated once every 15 minutes. This makes doing automated API based DNS based LE challenges annoying because you need to sleep your script for 15 minutes to ensure the update got pushed. Also, I'm surprised Cloudflare omit talking about whois privacy in the blog post. Makes me…

We actually didn't talk about WHOIS Privacy because it's becoming less and less of a relevant feature in the post-GDPR world. We do support it, free of charge. Cloudflare is also the largest authoritative DNS deployment in the world, and changes propagate in closer to 15 seconds than 15 minutes.

Thanks for the confirmation. Sounds promising.

Do you happen to also offer free email forwarding with registered domains?

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#12

Post by zackbloom »

nickjj wrote: post #11
zackbloom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We actually didn't talk about WHOIS Privacy because it's becoming less and less of a relevant feature in the post-GDPR world. We do support it, free of charge. Cloudflare is also the largest authoritative DNS deployment in the world, and changes propagate in closer to 15 seconds than 15 minutes.

Thanks for the confirmation. Sounds promising. Do you happen to also offer free email forwarding with registered domains?

I don't have the answer to that yet. On the one hand it's a bit far afield of what we normally do. On the other a lot of people seem to get it from their registrar and rely on it.

The ideal situation would be if we could find a way to do email forwarding which wasn't just as good as what they do, but was exciting and meaningful. We'll keep thinking about it and let you know on our blog.

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#13

Post by bpye »

LakeAustin wrote: post #9
r1ch wrote: post #4

This sounds great. Hopefully the TLD coverage is extensive, I dislike having my domains split across multiple registrars based on their supported extensions.

We want to help you consolidate those! Full list here for TLDs supported at launch, but we're busy working to add more before then. https://www.cloudflare.com/tld-policies/

Hope you get .uk etc that Nominet are in charge of too, would be happy to use just one registrar.

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#14

Post by johnklos »

While Cloudflare appears to be doing things that are meant to help everyday people, I can't help but be suspicious. This is an organization that sticks with the "we don't host" bullshit line when web sites serve up Trojans which pretend to be Adobe Flash installers. While there's more subjectivity involved with dealing with hosting the content of spammers, there is zero subjectivity involved with clear and obvious phishing sites.

First, anyone with the tiniest modicum of common sense can tell that these pretend Flash sites are absolutely not in the slightest way legitimate content.

Second, providing services in any way, shape or form is, in fact, hosting. Providing DNS? It's hosting. Providing a cached version of the site? Hosting.

So if they want to be in the business of pretending to be not-hosting, then they have to stop providing services that without which web sites would cease to function. Are they now going to claim that they're not providing meaningful services to domains registered through them, and therefore they should not be responsible for people who are doing illegal things?

Probably.

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#15

Post by nickjj »

zackbloom wrote: post #12
nickjj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the confirmation. Sounds promising. Do you happen to also offer free email forwarding with registered domains?

I don't have the answer to that yet. On the one hand it's a bit far afield of what we normally do. On the other a lot of people seem to get it from their registrar and rely on it. The ideal situation would be if we could find a way to do email forwarding which wasn't just as good as what they do, but was exciting and meaningful. We'll keep thinking about it and let you know on our blog.

If you want to blow everyone away then I think you should start with giving free real inboxes for everyone (maybe with some sane limit, or a way to pay per month to increase it), and then introduce email forwarding in the future (because I'm sure some people will still want that feature even with real inboxes available).

If you GA'd with:

~$8 .com addresses, N real inboxes, free whois guard and a top notch DNS record API.

That's a compelling offer and I'd very likely switch from namesilo if that were the case.

To be honest, anything less and I'd stay with namesilo because the 15 minute timer can be worked around by using my web host's name servers (digitalocean pushes updates in a few seconds). I couldn't live without either email forwarding or a real inbox.

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#16

Post by ocdtrekkie »

I think this is pretty great. Apparently a .com is going to run you only $8.03 right now.

I already use Cloudflare for some things, and like to keep my web presence diversified, so I probably won't move my main domains to Cloudflare just to maintain "separation of powers", but there's definitely some "own the other TLDs of these"-type domains that I have which I may hand off to Cloudflare to save money.

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#17

Post by zackbloom »

johnklos wrote: post #14

While Cloudflare appears to be doing things that are meant to help everyday people, I can't help but be suspicious. This is an organization that sticks with the "we don't host" bullshit line when web sites serve up Trojans which pretend to be Adobe Flash installers. While there's more subjectivity involved with dealing with hosting the content of spammers, there is zero subjectivity involved with clear and obvious ph…

I appreciate that these decisions can seem easy, but broadly do you want a private company deciding what can be on the internet, or do you want that decision made by a judge with due process?

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#18

Post by zackbloom »

nickjj wrote: post #15
zackbloom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the answer to that yet. On the one hand it's a bit far afield of what we normally do. On the other a lot of people seem to get it from their registrar and rely on it. The ideal situation would be if we could find a way to do email forwarding which wasn't just as good as what they do, but was exciting and meaningful. We'll keep thinking about it and let you know on our blog.

If you want to blow everyone away then I think you should start with giving free real inboxes for everyone (maybe with some sane limit, or a way to pay per month to increase it), and then introduce email forwarding in the future (because I'm sure some people will still want that feature even with real inboxes available). If you GA'd with: ~$8 .com addresses, N real inboxes, free whois guard and a top notch DNS record…

When you say real inboxes, are you thinking webmail of some sort? Don't most people prefer to use Google Apps or the like these days?

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#19

Post by r1ch »

Looks like there's a bug with the wait list, once you sign up don't visit the page again or it registers you again in a later wave!

On further investigation it seems to be throwing 502 errors and then saying Wave 8, so maybe it's just a UI bug.

Re: Introducing Cloudflare Registrar

#20

Post by JonKF »

zackbloom wrote: post #18
nickjj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to blow everyone away then I think you should start with giving free real inboxes for everyone (maybe with some sane limit, or a way to pay per month to increase it), and then introduce email forwarding in the future (because I'm sure some people will still want that feature even with real inboxes available). If you GA'd with: ~$8 .com addresses, N real inboxes, free whois guard and a top notch DNS record…

When you say real inboxes, are you thinking webmail of some sort? Don't most people prefer to use Google Apps or the like these days?

Most places and projects I've worked in the past 10 years or so have used GSuite or similar for inboxes, and Amazon SES or similar for programatically sending email. Those that didn't (shared-hosted websites on CPanel installations seemingly do still exist in 2018) had access to webmail in the hosting panel or as an installable application.
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