Any Domain Name Registar Suggestions?

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a domain name for my website.

I was thinking of buying my domain through GoDaddy.com, but I've heard some stories of them screwing with their customers (charging wrong credit card numbers, charging customers for services they never wanted or got without giving refunds, etc.), so I'd like to ask you guys if you know some good, honest and reliable domain name registars.

I know of the registar list:

http://www.internic.org/alpha.html

But there are so many, and it's impossible to judge things such as reliability by the information they present. That's why I'm looking for comments from people who've had personal experiences with some of them.

By the way, if you work for one, please don't advertise and try to lure me into going for your registar (unless you absolutely, honestly believe that yours is the best).

Last year I gave a friend a domain for Christmas using a hosting company called www.name2host.com and so far they've been pretty good. Its $35 to register your domain and host it for 1 year. You get:

100 mb web space
5 mb MySQL database
10 pop3 mailboxes
3 gb of traffic / month
PHP, CGI, Perl

You can get more space for a few extra $$$. My only complaint with them was their registration process was a bit clunky. Also, if you need it, they don't support secure HTTP (yet).

I've been with godaddy for couple years now and haven't had any problems.

Thanks for the comments...

dcaillouet, I'm actually looking for just a domain name, not actual webspace (except, maybe, if it's an incredibly great service).

It was a personal website for a friend who was going to be traveling abroad for a few years to post photographs to. So we've never really stress tested it to see how it would handle a heavy load. You'd have to get a 10-day trial account, upload your site to it and see if it worked okay. I haven't had any problems with them but then again I haven't made too many demands.

I just liked the single flat fee for a year's hosting & domain registration.

http://www.directnic.com

I think $15 is fair for what they offer.
I'm sure you could get better deals, you have to take time to find it, and every time i found something cheaper there was something wrong with it. i'm a newbie though

I don't really care much about a few dollars price-difference. Reliablity and customer service are more important to me than that.

try
registerFly

I've also never personally experienced any problems with GoDaddy. Collectively between myself and clients we must have over 30 domains registered with them. Any time I have every had an issue CS has been excellent.

I seem to remember having probs with godaddy, but I can't remember what they were..

I did have serious problems with dotregistrar.com, who managed some how to release my domain to somebody else - it was actually reregistered to a completely different user... my crappy free hosting people at the time said that dotregister had been hax0rd

However, I think the actual mess-up was at firsthostweb.com, who were hosting and it was through them that I bought the domain. It took them several days to get the domain back and as for the site contents/database ? The whole lot was gone and they had no backup stratgey and there was nothing they could do.

so choose carefully, look at domains already registered through your chosen company and run a whois to see if they are resellers for some other outfit... it helps to know who you're dealing with.

Also, if you are interested in 2nd level DNS infrastructures, centralnic have a cracking portfolio and offer much higher name availability (see link below) </shameless plug>

just my USD 0.02

christo

try www.gbhost.biz

I use GANDI.NET, a French company that also uses english. They cost 12€ / year for any TLD. They provide you with FULL domain maintenance, including configuring NS (you can use theirs for free or your own, parking, redirects, mx - in short everything) They allow you to keep all domains under one login/NIC if you wish, transfer domains at no cost, etc.