Freenom / dot.tk still viable after all these years!

[Genesis]

Thumbs up for a Free Domain Registrar that has survived against all odds for many years.

Dot.tk or Freenom is a well known, or better put notorious provider of free domains for a number of years. Quite a number of users who have developed free domains with Freenom have burnt their fingers with losing their domains. However there have been users like myself who have used it for the better part successfully over many years. I find the domains propagate to new name servers very fast, even faster than well known subscription domain registrars like Namecheap. Only time when I've lost a domain has been when I haven't renewed the subscription in time, which is easy to happen as Freenom only allows one 14 days before the maturity of the domain to renew the domain.

So over the last two years although it was easy to renew old domains, I found it very difficult to create new domains with Freenom. Almost as though there was a block on it or algorithm that was region specific causing the subscription to abort at the final stage. For a while I could get past it with experimenting with different regions, but when I tried in July this year, I was completely unable to register a new domain. Then when I Googled the issue I discovered that Freenom was in trouble and thought that possibly my free domains have come to an end. Looks like Freenom free domains is a going concern again as when I tried to renew my two old domains this morning the renewal went through as fast and effortless as before. I then experimented with getting a new domain, and was totally surprised when the subscription went through instantly. DNS propagated almost immediately. So looks like Freenom is a going concern once again.

I don't think I'll recommend dot.tk/Freenom for developing serious Websites as dot.tk is not that well supported by the Internet. But for hobby sites like I have, and for experimentation, it works very well. Hopefully my experience of today has not been a fluke. I've had these two old hobby domains of mine for almost a decade now. Getting to be nostalgic domains.

 

[admin]

If you can remember I wrote a blog post on the shady practices of the .tk domains. It was focused on how they can revoke access to the domain no questions asked to try and force you to upgrade to a paid plan.

Here is a link to the blog - Dot.tk a scam registrar? Or is it? - GigaRocket Blog

 

[Genesis]

Haha, I remember those discussions very well in many many discussion forums. There have been many Freenom users over many years who have been badly burnt by Freenom domains. I in particularly remember a user at FreeFTPSpace of a few years back who was deeply upset. I would never use Freenom for serious endeavours. One can get really cheap domains these days from above board domain registrars. Also if one Googles Freenom, like I did last year and this year in July, at one time it wasn't possible to get a free domain with them and it looked as though the Registrar was not going to be around much longer. I was convinced they were going under. But that reporting in its own right is a warning of sorts. My attachment is mostly a nostalgic one, so it's interesting for me to see how long my two free domains will last with Freenom. Looks like we're good for another year.