You're conflating two different concepts: DNS hosting, and DNS resolving.
This service seems to offer hosting services, i.e. publishing your domain's records in the DNS in DNS authoritative servers.
A DNS resolution service looks up and maintains large caches of DNS data on your behalf, optimizing DNS lookups by not requiring your own device to recursively query many different DNS servers. These lookups start by querying the DNS root zone, which is published by the DNS's authoritative servers which are listed in the root hints file.
This looks so much like https://dns.he.net/ that it seems to me it can’t be a coincidence. Is this a case of copying a well known design or is there more to it?
omg, invoking php-nuke brings me back. fun era (recent php2shell wild ride notwithstanding). Honestly it's more like web 1.5 - not straight up hand written html but no wild client side stuff either.
And yes, there absolutely was a "look" that's a product of the technology of the time - tables for design, limited styling / js support, php "components" that you could load and replace as part of your portal, and "themes".
I wouldn't think much of it. It was a popular design trend for a while there; some just never updated. I don't blame them, it's fairly decent on readability and minimalism.
afraid.org has been there offering free DNS hosting since the year 2000, 26 years
Whilst it would be nice to know their contingency and continuity plans, I feel like their history is a better indicator of the future than just a bunch of feel-good words that you'd likely find a way to interpret pesssimisticly anyway.
One of the 5,000+ premium members. I've been using them as a secondary and for dynamic dns since... I have no idea for how long but much further back than 2015 when I started using a password manager that keeps history, probably circa 2005.
This is awesome. I'll use them as a backup DNS service; the paid version is significantly cheaper than spinning up a new domain server with the cheapest provider I know.
Not to downplay my own skills, but their OpenBSD infrastructure is a good idea. They'll be up when my DNS servers are down.
I use one of their "dynamic domain" as a stable address to point to my home computer : example.mooo.com instead of using the IP. They provide an endpoint for a cron to update this IP each X time.
similarly, someone please explain why a free citizen would voluntarily use a Google DNS service that builds profiles and extensive activity records on its users
I am a free tier sucker. I use it for testing DNS setups with our hosting platform. But I love it. Maybe some exposure helps to bring some paying customers.
This is one of the most solid and longest lasting services online. Have been using it for almost two decades I think and nothing's changed.
Why dns is a topic eludes me because they all forward to root hint servers.
Why doesn't everyone just use their IANA resolvers?
You're conflating two different concepts: DNS hosting, and DNS resolving.
This service seems to offer hosting services, i.e. publishing your domain's records in the DNS in DNS authoritative servers.
A DNS resolution service looks up and maintains large caches of DNS data on your behalf, optimizing DNS lookups by not requiring your own device to recursively query many different DNS servers. These lookups start by querying the DNS root zone, which is published by the DNS's authoritative servers which are listed in the root hints file.
Their backup DNS service is great, so you can run your own DNS with just one server.
https://nic.eu.org/ is also very cool for getting a domain name if paying for one is a challenge.
https://nic.eu.org is very nice but I haven't been able to register a domain there for a long time now
This looks so much like https://dns.he.net/ that it seems to me it can’t be a coincidence. Is this a case of copying a well known design or is there more to it?
It's possible they are both descendants from XName: https://web.archive.org/web/20120625081138/http://source.xna...
Doesn't look that similar to me, they both just look a bit old.
The "portal" layout style was very popular on Web 1.0, reminds me of PHP-Nuke.
omg, invoking php-nuke brings me back. fun era (recent php2shell wild ride notwithstanding). Honestly it's more like web 1.5 - not straight up hand written html but no wild client side stuff either.
And yes, there absolutely was a "look" that's a product of the technology of the time - tables for design, limited styling / js support, php "components" that you could load and replace as part of your portal, and "themes".
> PHP-Nuke
There's a name I haven't heard in a while!
I wouldn't think much of it. It was a popular design trend for a while there; some just never updated. I don't blame them, it's fairly decent on readability and minimalism.
I am interested, but I have some questions that don't seem to be addressed in the about us page:
How well is continuation guaranteed?
What if someone buys them? Or the maintainer stops for whatever reason?
afraid.org has been there offering free DNS hosting since the year 2000, 26 years
Whilst it would be nice to know their contingency and continuity plans, I feel like their history is a better indicator of the future than just a bunch of feel-good words that you'd likely find a way to interpret pesssimisticly anyway.
An answer to "what happens if the administrator of this dies?" doesn't require feel-good words to answer clearly.
Happy freeloader for something like 15 years, can recommend
I have a couple domains (notably BBS.io) with them for people to use as ddns sub domains. Pretty happy overall.
So to get this straight this is just hosted DNS? Like Route53? They aren’t a registrar or anything?
So you could pay for hosted DNS and then use them as the name server and other DNS records for multiple domains that you have?
It is like Route53. However, you cannot buy domain names from FreeDNS.
You can use FreeDNS as a name server and manage domain name records, like A records, cname, and MX records. You can have a dynamic domain name too.
You can also obtain free sub domain names from those who use FreeDNS as the name server and offer free sub domain names.
Every once in a while, HN surfaces absolute gems like this. Bookmarked and thanks to esher!
One of the 5,000+ premium members. I've been using them as a secondary and for dynamic dns since... I have no idea for how long but much further back than 2015 when I started using a password manager that keeps history, probably circa 2005.
This is awesome. I'll use them as a backup DNS service; the paid version is significantly cheaper than spinning up a new domain server with the cheapest provider I know.
Not to downplay my own skills, but their OpenBSD infrastructure is a good idea. They'll be up when my DNS servers are down.
Isn't it FreeBSD?
Yes.
If you're having trouble connecting, turn off your proxy/VPN.
Can someone explain how and why and when this would be used?
I use one of their "dynamic domain" as a stable address to point to my home computer : example.mooo.com instead of using the IP. They provide an endpoint for a cron to update this IP each X time.
similarly, someone please explain why a free citizen would voluntarily use a Google DNS service that builds profiles and extensive activity records on its users
Is this meant to be snarky? I don't get it. To them, it is a sincere question.
I am a free tier sucker. I use it for testing DNS setups with our hosting platform. But I love it. Maybe some exposure helps to bring some paying customers.
Site has been hugged to death.
Free services are never free. It is only free because someone else is paying.
I don’t use this but “hoping” that someone else will donate is not sustainable for them and unrealistic in the long term.
Maybe they should start charging.
Well, they've been around for 14 years. And they do charge for some services.
Looks like they've been around for 25 years.