Ask HN: Favorite domain availability checker?

I use the whois command utility which is available by default on any Mac. If you're using Linux it is usually installed by default, but not always.

To install it on Ubuntu:

apt-get install whois

or on CentOS:

yum -y install jwhois

On Windows you can download it from here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897435.asp...

To use it, simply type on the command prompt:

whois domainname.com

I find this approach much faster and easier than using a website that essentially does the same thing. Not to mention that there were rumours a few years ago that some of those websites are capturing what you're searching for and register the most interesting domain names hoping they will sell them back to you.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Liviu