39Got an email from David Ulevitch on 12 Jan to all the current EveryDNS subscribers that Dyn Inc has acquired EveryDNS. In the acquisition FAQ,
3) Will the service remain free?
While we don’t 100% have the answer to that yet, we will not be making any changes to the service you are currently receiving for the foreseeable future. We will be discontinuing signups in the near future but existing accounts will remain active and fully functional.
Looks like the reality is slightly different. Just got another email from Dyn Inc with regarding to the transition.
First off, anyone who has donated to David and EveryDNS since 2001 will be grandfathered into free Custom DNS hosting with DynDNS.com…
So not everyone will be migrated but those who donated. Well I did donate and got unlimited domains + unlimited records from EveryDNS (although I only have ~10 domains there). The Custom DNS hosting offer is valued at $30/year so that’s the saving a previous donator. However that’s only for 1 zone.
I have to say that DynDNS has pretty good reputation in hosted DNS space, and having 100% DNS availability is arguable even more important than your having your web servers online all the time. Still a hefty price to pay though. With EditDNS going to pay model, EveryDNS migrating to DynDNS and lots of issues with ZoneEdit. Which other free DNS provider would you put your trust on?
I am an everydns user but never donated and from the email I got today it is not sure what will happen. If I donate today does that mean I will get the free Custom DNS hosting? I wonder too, what are other alternatives? I only manage 2 domains and it is a bit of a set and forget service for which I don’t really want to pay.
Thankfully for that last year I’ve slowly been moving to dnsmadeeasy, the cheapest dns provider I could find. Horrendous web interface, but it’s cheap and has more record options than everdns. Still sad to see them go.
With free DNS providers coming and going, and considering how critical DNS is, I think that the best solution is to rent 2 or 3 cheap geographically dispersed VPS and set up your own authoritative DNS servers.
For freebies I’ve had varying levels of service from these two:
http://freedns.afraid.org
http://xname.org/
For a paid service:
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/pricing
Not too bad either.
Are the days of free services going out the window? It would be nice to be able to give free stuff to the “community”, however these days spammers and script kiddies tend to make life a bit harder.
@ Sebastiano — paid DNS hosting is still an option if you are not after complete control. DynDNS is a reputable despite expensive option. I use DNSMadeEasy and have been pretty happy with it (except the fact that it lacks API access).
Still thinking where to go, probably DNSMadeEasy too, that’s the cheapest so far, though only for 3 domains. While I’ve been using dyn for years as domain registrar and it’s dynamic dns service, USD30 for just one zone a year is just too expensive.
I thought I have donate before but when checked back, still haven’t. Sad, sad. It run so smoothly that I just forgot about it.
@Joseph — I think you are right. Judging by the number DDoS that EveryDNS has received over the last couple of years, the free service has certainly been abused by the undesirables.
To answer GCL’s question, we will honor all donators with lifetime free service. We definitely appreciate the feedback that’s coming to us and that we’re seeing on forums like this.
Chris Widner
DynDNS Ninja Squad
Hi DynDNS Ninja :) Does that mean that if I donate now that I will still be eligible? I only manage one domain.
Anyone heard of these: http://freedns.afraid.org/
@Geert Yes I’ve used afraid, they are mostly ok, few little hits from time to time when they get a DDOS, but otherwise ok.
As an aside, anyone have any thoughts on using DNS provided by registrars?
I’ve always steered clear of it, but I don’t have any hard facts to say don’t do it.
Hi Geert,
If you donate now, we will still honor that donation along with the ones done before we acquired EveryDNS.
@Chris
I paid years ago to Everydns. What I am wondering though is will I be able to continue adding domains for free once we move to dyn, or will all new ones incur a $30 charge?
As for unlimited free domains, that’s something we’re trying to work out. Currently we’re not sure which direction we’re going there.
I was looking at the options in DNS hosting a while ago, having just a few domains, and didn’t like most of the offers. In all I missed one or more of: support for NOTIFY, support for DNSSEC and support for IPv6.
(If I remember correctly, EveryDNS actually missed all three.)
Therefore, I recently started Solid DNS ( http://www.soliddns.net/ ). Only secondary DNS is available for now, but most among us that have their own domain name, already have a server where they could set up primary DNS.
For the next two weeks, anyone signing up with the coupon code HOSTINGFU42 will receive a permanent 10% discount on their account :-)
DNSMadeEasy is great and very inexpensive. Namecheap also offers free DNS (fairly basic but it’s been rock solid and free).
I’m an EveryDNS donator and recently tried to add a couple of new domains using EveryDNS as secondary. So far these new domains have not performed an AXFR from the primary nameservers and therefore have not responded to queries as authoritive nameservers. I’ve lodged a query about this with DynDNS and EveryDNS and have not had a response as yet. I’m going to submit another request about this problem. Luckily for me I do have access to a couple of nameservers within my hosting provider so all is not lost but I would prefer to have the EveryDNS setup I’m used to to spread the query load and as failover.
Here’s hoping that second query will be responded to and either I’ll get an answer to why the new domains are not initiating an AXFR or it’ll get fixed up.
Hi VRAMM,
You’ll want to continue contacting EveryDNS support regarding this. The DynDNS team does not have access to the EveryDNS infrastructure yet. I’ll pass the word along that you’re not getting a response to your inquiry, however.
just get a small cheap vps and setup primary dns. (nsd might run well on 64meg vps)
then use any other (afraid.org?) for secondaries.
you can opt not to list your primary dns so that the cheap vps wont get heavy load
Just stumbled across http://www.zerigo.com …. free for 3 domains/30 hosts (about 2 google apps domains)
Any comments about http://www.public-dns.org?
Thanks for all persons. I am look at DYNDNS Custom DNS service coupon.
Help me any one?
I am also on everydns but has not donated anything. I want to know if i donate now, will i become eligible? I like everydns. It’s really sad that they are shutting down.
Regards
Larry Hill
We’re still honoring donations, so if you donate now, you’ll be eligible.
I’m not opposed to paying a fee to keep this running, but I haven’t ever been able to get this to work. Anyone know definitively if this can work through Comcast services? I don’t mind paying for the service, but it seems silly if I can’t make it work. Anyone know of a temporary, free service where I can continue to occasionally poke at this until I get it working? As I said, once working, I’d be happy to pay, but I don’t really see any point paying for something that isn’t working. Maybe we’ll get more fixed IPs when IPv6 rolls out next year.
And as of a few hours ago, editdns is also a part of Dyn Inc.
I just donated, hopefully you are honouring donations. How long would I have to wait until my everydns domain is re-surrected? My website is still down.
Also wanted to add that I really miss the everydns service
I am really happy and I would highly recommend Zerigo’s managed DNS service.
Yes Zerigo’s pretty good although their free service is a bit limiting in terms of number of requests/month. For me I need at least their NS Medium ($22/quarter) and DNSMadeEasy turns out to be cheaper for me.
I’m an EveryDNS donating member and I can’t get a support ticket answered since Dyn took over. They say donating members should get a response within 4-6 days (which is pretty bad to begin with), but I’ve waited for at least 3 weeks and gotten no response at all except for the initial auto-responder.
Their DNS servers also no longer seem to be geographically diverse as they were before the acquisition. Now, according to Maxmind, all four are now located in San Francisco CA, USA.
I hope this gets better, but so far it seems that Dyn has really not done EveryDNS justice. I would donate more to help keep it running, but the current state of things makes me nervous about doing so.
Thanks for the tip on Zerigo.
Hi Bill,
What is the ticket number you got from the autoresponder? I want to look into this for you. As for the current locations of the nameservers, keep in mind that we’re going to be migrating everything over by the end of the year to our DynDNS nameservers, which are globally diverse.
Chris,
The ticket number was 1346159. While it’s nice to get a response finally, I’m surprised it took a post on a third party blog to get one. Social networks are nice tools, but it’ll be a sad day if they take the place of genuine support avenues.
Good to hear about the nameservers. I know that Dyn has stated that the EveryDNS migration was to be completed by year end, but there hasn’t been much recent communication on the process. With only two months left in the year, that’s left me (and I’m sure others) very worried about the future.
Hi Bill,
To your first point, it looks like your account was not flagged as being a donator before we acquired EveryDNS, so it looks like you have a free account to us. I’m going to have a support tech respond to you through that ticket and see if we can get that piece squared away.
Chris,
Odd. My account was properly marked as having donated. Just to be sure though, I just donated again. Thanks for being on top of this.
Solved. Thanks for the help Chris.
Excellent, I’m glad to hear it. I’m sorry that you ran into this hassle, but happy that it’s resolved.
DNSPark offers DNS Hosting free for two domains initially, then it’s $8.95/year for additional domains. Been using them for years – great service!
Following up on my comment (#31) regarding the diversity of the EveryDNS servers since Dyn’s takeover: After migrating from EveryDNS system to Dyn’s, I must say that I’m surprised that my assigned DNS servers are still not geographically diverse. Now they’re all located in Delaware. I’m sure that Dyn does offer better, but apparently they’re just not willing to give it to the former EveryDNS users.
If you’re among the people still looking for a replacement for EveryDNS (since it officially gets killed off August 31, 2011), you may want to look here for alternatives:
http://www.lowendbox.com/wiki/free-dns-providers