On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 7:01 PM Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com wrote:
I've just initiated transfer of both my domains to Gandi, and I'll tell you why:
And if the losing registrar is prompt and doesn't drag their feet, and you watch your emails and take the appropriate actions (e.g. like using a confirmation URL) in a quite timely manner, then the transfer could be fully completed in a few hours or less. But alas, many registrars (e.g. NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com) will drag their feet and take the maximum time they can contractually get away with (which is I think 72 hours? I forget precisely how long. May also vary somewhat by TLD).
So, e.g. having dealt with AWS and Google as losing registrars, they also make it super fast and easy to transfer away - yet another sign of a generally at least competent or better registrar - while many others tend to drag their feet to the extent they can - typically apparently hoping to manage to hold onto the registration or get the person or such to change their mind - some will also hit one with lots of email(s) and/or other offers to attempt to not lose the registration. Heck, last I dealt with NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com, every time as renewal time approached, in order to get 'em from about 3x market rate to reasonably competitive rate, would have to start to go through the transfer motions, then they'd make sane offers on pricing, I'd accept those - but alas, those offers would also require opting into their spam^W"marketing" emails. And alas, while opting into that was always a single click, opting out would always require a phone call and 30 days to process.
And, somewhere at your losing registrar, at their higher levels of customer service and/or technical support - if they exist 8-O - they probably have some means of being able to extend domains, by positive integral number of years (up to whatever the maximum is, which may also vary by TLD) ... but alas, seems they quite lack the competence to reasonably well and easily do that - even via support request or the like (not a great sign). Sounds rather like lower-level folks (and they may lack the higher), "pushing buttons" - selecting among probably the only menu options they've given to such folks - in order to at least roughly/grossly (but not well at all) attempt to implement what they think the customer wants.
And, does sound like other not (so) competent registrars, e.g. a feature/capability that ought be easy for customers to do if they want, really shouldn't even require support email(s) or calls, should be able to do that easily enough from customer web interface ... yet seems they probably entirely lack that ... and heck, probably don't even have that capability available to their support/billing personnel. So, like Namecheap.com https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=system:registrars#namecheapcom over a decade after customer(s) requesting it, still no capability on customer web interface to add or update IPv6 glue records. Whereas Gandi, that's dead simple, just type/paste in the desired IPv4 and/or IPv6 IP addresses, click, and done. It's not rocket science. But some registrars can't handle that. Or Joker.com https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=system:registrars#jokercom being grossly incapable of even updating a single IPv4 glue record.
Thinking of billing/renewals, also reminds me of fsckup with NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com and billing and credit card(s). A domain where I was not registrant nor at all in any way officially connected to the domain's registration (I was not any kind of contact at all with registrar for the domain) was coming up on expiration, so ... I, using credit card, renewed it, as, like most registrars and domains, for non-expired domains, most will allow anyone to pay for a renewal prior to expiration, so, I did so. Anyway, did that on a single one-shot basis ... and I think I did that by phone - in any case, never asked for my card data to be added on to the (not my) account, etc. ... yet, alas, they stuck it on there and enabled auto-renew on it. Oh, and the kicker ... they wouldn't let me take it off of there! They'd only let the registrant remove my credit card from the billing or automatic renewal on the account! Ugh!
Well, sounds like your losing registrar is another that I ought add on https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=system:registrars and noting (at least some of) the problems.
Oh, and thinking/speaking of renewing (well) before expiration ... so, Gandi.net - I've got 5 domains there ... current expirations range from 2024-07-04 through 2025-07-02, and all of them offer renew options - so can renew far in advance (though only one is presently reminding me about that, as it's <~=30 days ... and peeking at emails, they reminded me at 60 day's 'til expiration, so that's probably when they also changed it in the web interface to make the impending expiration much more visible. And, I've got no credit card nor the like stored on the account. So, let's see, if I pick the furthest one out there - expires 2025-07-02 ... with one click it'll let me add to shopping cart to extend it by a year - I don't see an option for multiple years though ... and ... no, it won't let me add that exact same item multiple times to the shopping cart ... ah, yes, ... click wee bit further on shopping cart towards checkout ... and can select integral number of years, so could extend that one by anywhere from 1 to 8 years. For the one expiring 2024-07-04 it will let me select 1 through 9 years ... just have to make it wee bit further in the process for that to be optional selection to be readily visible.
So ... already sounding helluva lot easier than your losing registrar? :-) Though with the post-transfer lock period, not sure if you'll be able to add additional years at that time, but after that should be no such restrictions (other than of course whatever the per TLD maximum number of years is). So, maybe UI could be teensy bit better, but it's pretty solid ... and I'd likely also find the info about how to add additional years if I actually went and (re)read some more of their excellent documentation.
Anyway, that also beats the hell out of many registrars where the documentation is lacking and/or incorrect.