
GoDaddy Acquires Host Europe Group - Sujan
https://aboutus.godaddy.net/newsroom/news-releases/news-releases-details/2016/GoDaddy-Acquires-Host-Europe-Group-Becomes-Market-Leader-In-Europe-For-Small-Business-Cloud-Services/default.aspx
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scrollaway
For those here asking about alternatives (rightfully so as GoDaddy is one of
the sleaziest companies in the field), I recommend Gandi.net as domain
registrar. Namecheap is also good but they have a lot less TLD coverage.

Digital ocean for small scale hosting, too.

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netule
For domain name registration, I can't recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net[1]
enough. I moved all my domains there (around 30 at the time) from GoDaddy
about 3 years ago and never looked back.

[1]
[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/)

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dingaling
It's not really clear from their website but to register a domain only ( no
hosting ) you have to deposit into an NFS account first including 'deposit
fees' that they charge, plus any international payment fees charged by your
institution.

Slightly awkward and seems likely to leave an unusuable residue, as opposed to
just paying the required amount directly.

~~~
j_s
This is on purpose.

[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#gp_domains](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#gp_domains)

 _Are your domain registration services intended for general-purpose usage?

No, our domain registrations services are provided on a cost-recovery basis as
a service to our hosting members, and are not intended to be used as a
standalone product. We are not, nor do we have any interest in being, a
general-purpose domain registration provider.

Consequently, while we do not impose any restrictions on the use of our domain
registration and RespectMyPrivacy.COM services, our system is specially
designed to facilitate use of registered domains with our hosting services. If
you wish to use these services for other purposes, you are welcome to do so,
with the following caveats:

• it may require additional effort on your part to set up,

• our prepaid balance model is not optimized for domain-only usage, and

• we will not be able to provide technical support for usage of domains in
conjunction with third-party services._

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Firefishy
This isn't good news for the .uk domain space.

Nominet (who run the .uk ccTLD) allocate votes proportionally to registrars
based on how many domains they have registered. [1]

GoDaddy will now likely control the majority of the votes.

1: [http://nominet-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015...](http://nominet-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/58367_votingrightspolicy17052012.pdf)

~~~
tonylucas
The document you link specifically states protection mechanisms put in place
to prevent this from happening.

They will still have a significant vote, but a long long way from a majority
on any key issues.

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Firefishy
I hope I am mistaken... It is far from clear as an outsider.

But the 10% or 3% limit respectively is per TAG (handle). HostEurope have
multiple tags (HOSTEUROPE, 123-REG, WEBFUSION, WEBFUSION2, DOTUKDOMAINS, ... )

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tonylucas
4.3.3 In the Document covers this scenario.

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diakritikal
Ugh :( I'll personally be transferring away from 123reg now. Will probably
open a discussion with colleagues to the same effect.

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Karunamon
How is GoDaddy nowadays? I know for a while, they racked up a terrible
reputation ala Network Solutions for poor CS and policies, but have they
recovered at all?

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praneshp
<Unsure how customers feel about them>.

I worked at Godaddy in Sunnyvale for about 8-9 months, and left recently (for
personal reasons unreleated to the job). It was a great place to be, the
leadership was very down to earth and aware of the business, and the work-life
balance was great. In addition, the pay was good, the benefits and perks were
reasonable (but not awesome). Teams were encouraged and backed to try out new
tech they felt was helpful (vs having to go through a process). I also worked
with some super smart people. Also, if it matters to you, I thought it was
refreshing the way they acknowledged diversity issues internally, and how they
approach hiring. I recommend it as a great place to work, especially on the
non-infrastructure teams.

~~~
hawaiianbrah808
A number of former coworkers have joined them here in Seattle, and it sounds
like a pretty great place to work. I hear they're also great about letting
people work on side projects.

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runnr_az
I work for GoDaddy in the Office 365 Provisioning Team in Tempe, AZ. Our
team's stack is Ember + some React / PHP + node / Linux... all running on
OpenStack instances.

I think it's a great place to work... lots of interesting projects, nice
people, wonderful work / life balance. (I just got three months off for
Paternity leave, for instance.)

I can personally confirm the side project thing as well :)

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alrs
Did HEG make any acquistions after becoming part of Cinven? If it's the exact
same assets, going from $667 million to $1.82 billion in three years is some
pretty good work.

2013 acquistion: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-19/cinven-
bu...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-19/cinven-buys-host-
europe-from-montagu-for-438-million-pounds)

~~~
tonylucas
Quite a few: Sign-up.to, intergenia AG, Paragon Internet Group, MCS
Computersyteme, OpenIT, 5quidhost, Webfaction, Dataflame, Elastichosts, Mr
Site, Freezone, Daily Internet & Namescon

Think Intergenia was probably the biggest from memory.

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atl4s
Just in case there's anyone else like me, HEG also owns (owned) Paragon
Internet Group which is a problem as all my personal projects and domains are
with TSOHost...

What a PITA. RIP TSO, you will be missed.

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dwightgunning
The GoDaddy service has a history of terrible user interfaces, advertising
imagery that objectifies women, and the former CEO / founder Bob Parsons who's
shot wild African animals, still sits on the board.

How do new customers over look that to save a couple bucks per year? How do
existing customers ignore it because it'll take some time/effort/cost to make
the change?

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qxmat
Argh now I need an alternative to 123reg :(

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anexprogrammer
Gandi.net have been great. Control panel is techie-friendly, and support seems
unbeatable. Their "no bullshit" tagline seems to work. You don't get a ton of
upsells either.

I used to be OK with Namecheap but the Web 2 redesign makes doing most things
a pain.

~~~
sofaofthedamned
I use both Namecheap and Gandi, a couple of my observations:

1\. Namecheap has a _really_ low API limit which caused me problems when using
the DNS challenge to renew Let's Encrypt certificates.

2\. Their API has to have clients whitelisted by IP, which is a pain when
renewing a LE cert from a dynamic home IP.

3\. Agreed, their redesign is awful.

I used Gandi recently to get around these restrictions and:

1\. Their web UI is truly awful and confusing

2\. They don't have the same IP or rate limiting restrictions on the API

3\. Their versioning of zones is a bit confusing

4\. Their propagation seems to take an age longer than Namecheap. When the
latter worked each LE challenge took a couple of minutes, with Gandi it's more
like 20 minutes each.

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sofaofthedamned
HEG includes Heart Internet and 123Reg, two of the worst companies in their
field. They're welcome to them.

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nom
I was a happy customer of Host Europe for 13 years. I'm going to look for
alternatives now...

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gkst
I've been a customer since 2006 and just cancelled my account. Not sure, where
I'll move, but I need a provider that supports .de domains. I'm leaning
towards uberspace.de, but will consider Hetzner as well.

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TekMol
I have a couple of domains registered with Host Europe that are super
important to me. Is it safe to stay with them?

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anexprogrammer
There's a prod to hurry up and move the last few domains I still have at 123.

