Dyn.com Ends Free Dynamic DNS 242
First time accepted submitter mkitchin (1285710) writes in with news about Dyn ending its free DNS service. "For the last 15 years, all of us at Dyn have taken pride in offering a free version of our Dynamic DNS Pro product. What was originally a product built for a small group of users has blossomed into an exciting technology used around the world. That is why with mixed emotions we announced the end of that free hostname program today, officially turning down on May 7th."
Alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering Dyn bought several promised "free for life" DNS services then promptly killed them you need to realize they'll probably do it again. They've apparently decided the best business model is buy out their free competitors and put them out business.
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Yea welcome to the club, there are 700K of us.
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so you're saying someone could take the vacuum of service this opportunity generates to make a free dynamic DNS service, and once it hits a certain subscriber number, sell it to Dyn.com, then rinse, repeat?
Sounds like a plan.
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Considering Dyn bought several promised "free for life" DNS services then promptly killed them you need to realize they'll probably do it again. They've apparently decided the best business model is buy out their free competitors and put them out business.
I'm one of those that got an account when they bought out EveryDNS. They committed to keeping it free for life (but charged $5 for the "transition").
I'm actually a little confused by this announcement. I got an email from them this morning about it, but very little information. They included this in mine:
Not sure what this means for me.
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So... I've just come up with an awesome idea for a business model...
Bill Gates (Score:2)
"Buy 'em out Boys!"
Nerds smash up Homer Simpson's office
"You don't think I got rich by *actually* buying people out did you?"
sry, first thing that came to mind...
Re:Alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
With No-IP's free service [noip.com], host names expire every 30 days.
They only expire if you're too lazy to visit their website for three minutes to do a captcha when they send you the email saying your domain is about to expire. I've been doing it for months and have had uninterrupted service.
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I already had an alternative for years: my ISP. It has this free service where you login with your account, and pick [chosenname].go.ro - and that's it. Of course, some might consider it as rather limited but I think its more than fitting for a home user.
Re:Alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
A quick search reveals http://www.noip.com/ [noip.com], and I'm sure they'll be more. Anyway isn't this supposed to be a stopgap before IPV6 means we can all have permanent static IPS?!
I've been using ZoneEdit [zoneedit.com] for a long time. They've changed their business model slightly. Don't know if they still offer as many free options any more, but they have been great for me for over 10 years now!
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Anyway isn't this supposed to be a stopgap before IPV6 means we can all have permanent static IPS?!
You think your ISP is going to give you static IPs for free just because they have an IPv6 pool to dive into? Chances are it will still be DHCP and rotate occasionally. And the fee an ISP charges for static IP is more per year than paying for a dynamic DNS service.
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The problem is... that's also true of all always-on connections. The whole reason we got dynamic IPs in the first place is that a 300-line ISP only needed one IP per line, not one per customer. But an always-on broadband customer needs one IP per computer, and the only question is whether they're public or behind a NAT. IPv6 removes the need for NAT, but does not solve the "need" for a dynamic IP for a broadband customer
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A quick search reveals http://www.noip.com/ [noip.com] [noip.com], and I'm sure they'll be more
No-IP is dishonest and doesn't deserve your support.
Way back in mid 2004 I spent about $20 to buy No-IP's "Lifetime" dynamic DNS service which gave me (IIRC) 5 of their "enhanced" subdomains which would never expire and never cost me additional money. I was very happy with them and recommended them to several people.
Then suddenly in 2008 I got an email saying my service was about to expire. When I emailed them about it, they said:
Re:Alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Permanent static IPs sound like a privacy nightmare, anyway.
but think of the time it will save the NSA
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They are by default, but there is the IPv6 privacy extension RFC4941. Also if you use DHCPv6, then you can decide exactly what IP each host gets.
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Re:Alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's not very slashdot-like to do some research before posting but if you're not familiar with IPv6 please do yourself a favor and check it out thoroughly before spreading FUD. Yes, IPs are (most frequently) tied to MAC addresses _BUT_ you almost always will have 3 IPv6 addresses... a link-local address for communication just on the local subnet, a globally public one tied to your MAC (which you can distribute to people who you WANT to reach you), and a global public "temporary" IP address which you can use for outgoing connections but which will change periodically and will not be tied to your MAC. Of course this all depends a little on your IPv6 stack in your OS but this is how it's typically being handled.
Re:Alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
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Not sure what ISP you're using, but I haven't had one in the past 5 years or so that recycled my IP. Even over long down times (up to a day or two as I recall), the IP I was reissued was still the same.
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Viable Replacement? (Score:2)
Re:Viable Replacement? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Been using afraid.org for years after dyndns.org cancelled my account because I bitched at them about something stupid/selfish they did. Apparently stupid/selfish is par for the course with those people, so I'm glad I was an early emigre.
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Since my primary usage of their service is to access my array of routers at networks I control, I plan on using one of these alternatives if DNSimple [dnsimple.com], where I have a paid account, doesn't implement dyndns support in the next 30 days:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/ind... [dd-wrt.com]
Re:Viable Replacement? (Score:5, Interesting)
dyndns.org
freedns.afraid.org
no-ip.com
zoneedit.com
3322.org
easydns.com
tzo.com
dynsip.org
They are all pretty much the same as far as I care.
Re:Viable Replacement? (Score:5, Funny)
dyndns.org
Recursion found!
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dyndns.org
dyndns.org is dyn.com, so that won't help. That being said, they do offer paid services for more or less a couple dollars a month if you're attached to their featureset or something.
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Nobody uses Zonomi [zonomi.com]?
Re:Viable Replacement? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Viable Replacement? (Score:5, Informative)
Been very happy with https://freedns.afraid.org/ [afraid.org] ever since dyndns deleted my free domain because I didn't login to their website once a month.
This happened to me as well; I used to use dyndns but I lost my domain when they switched the domain I had been using to a "premium" one so then I had to go and reconfigure everything that depended on it to a new domain so after looking at some other alternatives I ultimately decided to use EntryDNS [entrydns.net] with my own domain I bought from GoDaddy.
EntryDNS is donation driven and doesn't have any of the bull I found at over services (login once a month, upgrade to premium spam, link back to their site, etc..) and you have both the option of using a free subdomain and/or using your own domain. I've been very happy with their service and am considering donating something as a token of appreciation.
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I've been very happy with their service and am considering donating something as a token of appreciation.
Consideration should help get their bills paid...
I need to consider how much I can afford to donate and when I can fit it into my budget taking into account bills and other things I need to pay for.
consider
verb: consider; 3rd person present: considers; past tense: considered; past participle: considered; gerund or present participle: considering
1. think carefully about (something), typically before making a decision.
"each application is considered on its merits"
synonyms: think about, contemplate, reflect on, examine, review; More
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I moved away from them to DNS Exit [dnsexit.com] after finding out that Afraid's default setup was to let anyone create a subdomain on your domain.
DNSExit isn't without their issues, though. If you don't want to use your DNS client, they have an HTTP updater. Unfortuantely, it's unencrypted and you need to put your password in as a "GET" parameter. Ugh!
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I've been happy with ChangeIP [changeip.com] for several years now, ever since Dyn started their pushy shenanigans.
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Yes, and disingenuousness. They say they are ending the free service because there is too much abuse. Google, Yahoo, MS, and others can still offer free email, despite all the spam, but Dyn can't continue the free version of a service that is much simpler and easier to manage than email? And, wasn't there plenty of abuse 5 years ago, 10 years ago? They could handle it then, and now they can't?
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I don't really care one way or another. From my perspective, they promised "free forever" and for a while they delivered. Then they started down the annoying their users path and I fled. If they held some kind of monopoly I'd be a lot more worked up, but there are plenty of alternatives.
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Re:Viable Replacement? (Score:5, Informative)
I've used Namecheap.com for my personal domain for a few years now and recently found out you can do dynamic DNS with them too. I realize it's not free, but, it's my own domain on a service I'm paying for. It's nice having house.(mydomain).com...
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Yeah, this. For way less than the price of what Dyn charges for DNS service, you can get your own domain name AND dynamic DNS service.
All with a company that doesn't try to screw you over every year, too.
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You have to use their nameservers.
I'd love to use this, but I run my own and would prefer to continue doing so.
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Have they always had that "30-day expiration" or is that new? That is -quite- annoying.
Their basic service is only $25 / year (Score:4, Informative)
I also like that someone wrote an auto-update utility (ddclient in FreeBSD) that I can run on my webserver as a daemon to keep my records updated should my ISP change my address on me.
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But there is probably a computer behind that routr (Score:2)
And that computer can use any service you care to setup.
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But I only want dynamic DNS. I don't want or need anything else, so I don't want to pay for them.
Unfortunately they don't seem to have a "just dyndns" package.
only a 1st year fix (Score:2)
The providers that you mentioned will sell you a cheap domain name, but only for the first year. Then they want to jack up the price if you want to keep it. If you're only using the name yourself then I guess just changing domains every year might be acceptable, but in my case I have a number of friends who all connect through my Teamspeak server for gaming and it is disruptive to try to get all of them to change their settings (some are extremely non-technical and don't respond to instructions to change an
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"Remote Access has you covered with the ability to create up to 30 hostnames (yourname.dyndns.org)"
So, no it gives you 30. Since they are subdomains of dyndns.org if you register your own domain name you'll have way more than just 30....
Go Daddy has no dynamic DNS (Score:2)
Why spend $25 when you can get an even better and likely shorter domain form something like godaddy or domain.com for about $8 a year for a .com?
The last time I checked, Go Daddy provided no API for a background service running on your server to update the zone file whenever the service notices that the server's IP address has changed. Zone files can be edited only through the web interface. With which registrar that provides such an API have you had a positive experience?
Plenty of Alternatives (Score:2, Interesting)
Dyn has been abandoning the free service for a while. Companies are responding to this.
The IP cams and routers I've bought in the past couple years (Foscam and ASUS) have rolled their own dynamic DNS service and built it in to their product. They use to just use Dyn until their customers started complaining saying Dyn is no longer free.
I have not needed Dyn's service in a while.
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Still free for life for donors (Score:2, Interesting)
I made a donation back in the 90's so I still get my lifetime free vip account.
Other alternatives sell your e-mail address to spammers so beware! I'd use a junk e-mail account.
People were still using them? (Score:3, Informative)
Dyn.com (the for-profit successor of dyndns.org) has been progressively making it harder to maintain your free address for the past 3 or 4 years. First, they made it so you had to update your DNS record once a month to avoid being cancelled (even if your IP address didn't change in that time), then they made it so you had to submit the update through their ad-infested web page, and I think they also increased the frequency that you had to do that. There are many alternatives which still provide a free service that is convenient to use, I'd have thought most users would have switched by now.
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First, they made it so you had to update your DNS record once a month to avoid being cancelled
For the record, the first impediment I encountered was requiring a valid credit card to establish a free account.
15 years..... some of the users they're trying to monetize weren't born when dyndns started this deal.
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Free Dyn.com account with D-Link routers (Score:2)
changeip.com (Score:4, Informative)
That's a shame. (Score:2)
I've been using my dyn.com domain for probably ten years now. Long enough that I don't actually remember when I originally signed up for it.
Regrettably, they don't register the TLDs I use and it's not worth $25/year to keep a "something.ath.cx" domain.
It was nice while it lasted, though.
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That would have been hilarious and I wish I had thought of it.
Grandfathering existing free accounts or not? (Score:2)
I have a free account from years and years ago. It still works as long as I visit a URL that they email once a month (of course, they deliberately make the URL unclickable, while there are other clickable URLs within the *same* email... seriously, guys, offer free or don't offer it, but don't be a dick about it)
What TFA doesn't make clear is whether they are ending the grandfathering of existing free accounts or ending the offering of new free accounts (something I thought they already did a few years ago)
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I subscribed to their service at one point, and when I just logged in, I got an offer for something, but my service still shows up.
I haven't gotten an email from them about my service ending period, so I dunno what will happen with me.
Overvalued (Score:3)
The service they provide is worth about £1 or £2 a year.
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With all the comments about moving to other free services or using this as an opportunity to start a new business, what is the value for most people? If there are enough people that value it at a certain price such that the costs of running the business are covered, there's a business to be made. Otherwise, it's just charity on the service's part. Sure, everyone likes getting stuff for free, but even free stuff costs money for someone.
-Chris
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If you have Linode, then it is free ... (Score:2)
If you have a Linode VPS, then you do have free Dynamic DNS. All you need is a script to update the relevant subdomain.
Here is a script that does it for an OpenWRT router.
Using Linode Dynamic DNS with OpenWRT [baheyeldin.com]
If you don't use OpenWRT, you can still use any Linux box behind the subdomain, but you need to setup a small "what is my IP" script outside your subdomain. For example, simple script like so will do the trick:
Now, you need to change the OpenWRT script
duckdns.org (Score:2)
That is all.
On the same note, (Score:2)
I'm a Dyn.com customer of old so I got an email to tell me that the promise to be "always free" back then holds for me, even if not for newer customers.
But when I was looking for a more modern replacement, I was expecting to be able to set up a Dyn-compatible service for my old domains using an external Linux server. There doesn't seem to be anything easy for that.
What I'd like is a Linux package which you can install on a server, and have it provide Dyn-like updating, without me having to play with BIND a
Re:You cancel service? (Score:5, Informative)
I smell a business opportunity... Or, perhaps not.
Having used Dyndns for nearly a decade, I'm sad to see it go pay only. Can't say I'm surprised. I figured this was on the way when they went to this - you have to log in each month or we delete your two free host names - that they where just trying to get us all to pay. Problem is, I really cannot see paying $25/year for the services they provide.
Re:You cancel service? (Score:4, Insightful)
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yeah but at 25 bucks / year you might just as well get something real...
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Re:You cancel service? (Score:4, Informative)
And my .com/.net/.org domain (that costs less than $25/year) gets me an infinite number of changeable names. I simply set the TTL on the subdomains low and update it whenever the IPs change.
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are you *really* trying to compare a service at $25/year with a service at $35/month?
I think you have missed an important part of the comparison..
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yeah but at 25 bucks / year you might just as well get something real...
What is something real? A permanent IP address, i.e. business class service, costs far more than $25. I just checked with Comcast recently and it started around $60 per month. And if you want cable TV, you cannot have DVR with business class service.
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domain != dyndns (Score:5, Informative)
DynDNS is useful if you want to be able to always contact a box on a domain, but it's got a dynamic IP address - i.e. typically for running a server on a home box. I use it to ssh into home when I'm away, I just do ssh mydyndomain.org and don't need to worry about IP addresses.
I have had domains with godaddy in the past, but I've always used dyn.com as well.
It is possible to use a script [readthedocs.org] to update your A record [wordpress.com] through your registrar's web interface, but this will break every time they update the site.
P.S. I recommend not using godaddy.
Re:You cancel service? (Score:5, Informative)
If you had donated at some point in the past, it looks like you get grandfathered in. From the email they sent me:
I donated somewhere around $10-$20 once, probably at least a decade ago.
NOIP does the same... (Score:3, Informative)
But dyn actually stopped sending the renewal emails, thus losing me my addresses, then turning out to have deleted those domains as available options for non-paying customers.
That's when I ended my relationship with them and jumped to noip.
After this though, I wonder how long util NOIP does the same.
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But dyn actually stopped sending the renewal emails, thus losing me my addresses, then turning out to have deleted those domains as available options for non-paying customers..
Ah, so it wasn't just me then..
I got the renewal email just a week ago or thereabouts.
Re:You cancel service? (Score:4, Interesting)
I used them a very long time ago, and recently tried to use them for a project. I ended up just using records from one of my domains, and using a little magic to compensate for the dynamic IP.
My observation was that they've made it harder and harder to actually set up the free service. Every click involved trying to sell me something. It was as bad or worse about "upselling" than godaddy.
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I'm replying because I modded the parent wrong, and this is the only way I know to delete a mod. I'm sorry!
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I have a small VPS that hosts a personal website. My home Linux box just does an http get with curl to a secret html file on the VPS webserver. Then I generate an html file every hour that reads the access_log and uses a script to genereate a web page that displays my home IP I can access. Has worked fine for me for quite some time. My IP rarely changes and I can just update my hostfile if I don't want to use my IP directly.
There are probably more elegant solutions but since I am the only one using it i
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Nice writing, holy crap. I meant;
Then I use a script to read the access_log and generate a web page with my home IP every hour.
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No-IP is a great free dynamic DNS alternative http://noip.co/1jVi5th [noip.co]
their free service also requires you to sign in every month. I'd suggest a service like http://freedns.afraid.org/ [afraid.org] which is completely free and doesn't require monthly logins to keep your account active.
Re:You cancel service? (Score:5, Funny)
Eh, They cancelled my account years ago after my router screwed up and started sending them updates to them as fast as it could. They thought it was a DOS attempt or something. It was really just my US Robotics DSL modem telling me it wanted to be set on fire and then smashed into small pieces. But, I understood their decision.
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It was really just my US Robotics DSL modem telling me it wanted to be set on fire and then smashed into small pieces.
Lol!!!
In my case, I've been using them for the better part of the past 5 years...like others, I knew the writing was on the wall when they started that login crap. I've in fact only used them sparingly in any case, as some time ago I just began using a domain name I'd purchased and my own DNS server. Not surprised they're finally taking the free offering away.
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"Effectively, they are taking away functionality that I have already paid for."
You mean to say that you already paid DynDNS for service? If so, I dont see how this affects you, as you are a paying customer.
If you are talking about something you paid to a hardware/software company for a router which had dyndns feature - generating value for the said router vendor, but no revenue for dyndns - I'm not sure I understand the fairness in your argument.
Once the warranty runs out (Score:2)
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I'm in Asia. My ISP doesn't do static IPs anymore. I'm lucky I'm on one that isn't doing carrier-grade NAT, though I don't know how long that will last.
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