Free domain reg. - can be quite useful !

[Lumos]

Quick edit:
Be sure and also look inside post #4 here.

I don't know about you - but I've been making use of free domains for years and find they can be quite helpful for a number of uses.

Quite a few folks already know of freenom.com that offers 5 different ones:
.ml, .cf, .ga, .tk, .gq .

Until recently there were several free sources of .cc domains - but they have all sort of disappeared somehow.

There are others though, here are just a couple;
Have a look, if you wish to:

Code:

https://www.freedomain.pro/basic.php
https://www.biz.nf/free-domain.php

Free domains are especially useful when one has good reseller hosting and wishes to test things like WP addons.

This can be even more useful if one has a base WP setup they prefer which can be migrated easily into any domain for testing purposes.

Another great use is simply for managing incoming emails - if you get loads of emails and find your inbox too messy to keep up with - directing sites and such to a totally new email address (or three !!) can help with that.

Also, this makes possible having a valueless email address which can just be deleted if it gets spammed to death by krappy sites.

I have some more places I can point out here if folks are interested...so if you want more, put in a quick reply here and I'll check back here to see if anyone wishes to discuss this further.

[ArnieAbrams]

Thanks for the info, always looking for more sites like those.

Repped ya!

===========================================
One already out of business, the other is somewhat limited.

But if you search for free domain registration you'll see the current crop.

[agape801]

repped, great info

thanks!

[Lumos]

Thanks for the replies here Arnie and Agape801 !!

Please bear in mind that many (or most ??) of these freebies are put up by a single person.

If it is just done as a hobby, they may forget about it after a while;
If it is ultimately a method of getting a list built or whatever, it may be dropped when it does not work out as planned.

Worthy of mention is that within the month a bunch of freebie providers in the .CC TLD all vanished without warning - cu.cc, nut.cc, usa,cc - etc. -just -POOF-...gone.
I had used a couple of those for years perfectly well for emails and such, and then - gone.

Another thing:
There are more such offers that I am not mentioning here because the freebie domains are ONLY given free to be used along with their free or paid hosting.

I used the free offer at 000W*bh*st this way for quite a while - and then they just killed it all off quite suddenly in favour of their commercial services (hostinger).

This one looks pretty good - but I have yet to test it myself:

Code:

https://codotvu.co/

Some of the other ones are sort of...out there, with funny rules, like this one:

Code:

https://www.nom.za/registration.html

Or not in english, like so:

Code:

https://www.azote.org/
(Has=> .asso.st, .fr.cr, .fr.nf, .ze.cx, .infos.st )
**************************
http://www.venez.fr/
(Has 22 different ones...)
**************************
http://pp.ua/
??????????
**************************
http://www.ven.bz/frontend/register.php
**************************
https://iz.rs/postupak_registracije..sr-lat
**************************
https://www.serverthuis.com/registreren/

I always suggest using these things as sort of disposable and/or for testing;
Using these sorts of freebies for stuff that needs to be up 100% is unrealistic and bound to lead to some disappointments.

[Jim Moriarty]

Good info..repped :)

[kontiki]

Applicabel information. repped!

[JohnHenry]

Thanks smithnowt for the post. Good stuff.

[Trikuro]

Thanks and + reps!

[Lumos]

Every so often I do a couple of searches on variations of 'free domain name' and find that buried among all the results showing hosting offers that include 1 'free' when you BUY their packages, sometimes a new source pops up.

Sadly, sometimes others fade away - like co.nr which was recently taken offline.

By way of contrast, the truly free ones via Freenom have gotten more dependable.

And:
If none of those suit you, keep an eye towards Namecheap for when they run sales with domain reg. for prices like .88 or 1.88 - which are about as close to actually being free as can be !!

PS:
No matter WHAT sorts of cons they offer, it is my most earnest advice to totally avoid 1&1 as well as Hostgator if you value your data and/or do not wish to be held prisoner of a really bad provider (yes, I learned these the hard way...YMMV.).