

Gandi.net will contribute $1 per inbound transfer to EFF until Jan 15th - mrcalzone
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2011-12-29/539-gandi_supports_the_eff/

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pclark
I am a huge fan of Gandi. Yes, they are slightly more expensive than other
services, but I find their user interface not just good, but really quite
amazing.

One simple but obvious feature they have is the ability to create DNS presets
and apply those for new domains, it's really useful. (other people probably
offer this)

Gandi also has fantastic support; it is slightly sad that they do not have a
telephone number, but I get the vibe that Gandi is a real technology company
and they believe they can offer premium support with support email. I agree,
but I'd still like a telephone number for burning issues.

My only real complaint is that they have an unbelievably stupid login system
where you log in not with a username, nor with an email address, but with an
entirely random username. Mine is: PC5669-GANDI. It's infuriating if you ever
need to use Gandi on a different computer. Why they saw it suitable to put
_their company name_ at the end of every login is puzzling.

Honestly though, its a minor criticism, and I love their "no bullshit" policy:
<http://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit>

In my experience it is true.

~~~
AdamGibbins
I'm not certain, but I have a feeling this is some crazy French law. The other
French company I work with on a regular basis (OVH) do this also.

~~~
madflo
This is called a NIC handle : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIC_handle>

This is not some crazy French law; Gandi has been in the registrar business
for quite a long time and OVH loves standards :-)

~~~
AdamGibbins
Good spot, thanks :) Never even occurred to me it would be registrar related,
as I don't use OVH as a registrar - they must apply the same standard to all
their customers.

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zbowling
Gandi.net has revocation polices similar to GoDaddy where they can impose
their own morality at revoking your domain.

~~~
jotto
Worth noting that Gandi is not a US company and has no telephone number to
call in case you need real, live support.

~~~
DASD
Gandi might not have a US number for support but they are incorporated in the
US.

The owner and publisher of this website is Gandi SAS, a simplified joint-stock
company registered under French law with a capital of 37,000 Euros.

Registered with the Paris RCS – French Trade Registry - under number 423 093
459. Intracommunal VAT number FR81423093459

Headquarters: 63-65 boulevard Massena, Paris (75013), France Telephone:
+33.(1)70.37.76.61 Fax: +33.(1)43.73.18.51

US office: Gandi US Inc. 124 Lakefront Drive Hunt Valley, MD 21030 Fax:
+1.410-449-4499

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Rust
Ahhhh, I just transferred three domains there a couple of days ago! Sorry EFF!
If I'd known they were going to do this, I'd have waited.

Guess I'll just have to donate directly...

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lmm
Don't they have a term whereby they can take your domain if they want to (or
rather, decide they could make more money that way)? ISTR that was why I
avoided Gandi.net last time I bought a domain.

~~~
jyap
Hmm, yeah, you're right:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/05/googlesharing_cert_r...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/05/googlesharing_cert_revoked/)

Revoked SSL based on trademark and Whois information.

Although the article does provide an update which says:

The reason for the certificate being revoked was because of the inaccurate
whois data. Certificates really are a seal of trust, but that cannot be based
on falsified whois data. It was right to revoke the certificate for this
reason, but not without being in contact with the customer. We have reviewed
and changed our processes to rectify this.

~~~
soult
BULLSHIT. I repeat: BULLSHIT!

Mr. Marlinspike bought a SSL certificate from Gandi by giving them wrong
personal information. When Gandi revoked the certificate, the support guys
first wrongly communicated that it was probaly due to a trademark dispute, but
it was actually just about the wrong whois information.[1]

Ok, miscommunications happen, but what really irks me about Mr. Marlinspike is
that he later went on to complain about how companies did not do enough to
verify the whois information for SSL certificates.[2] Which was, as we know,
the reason why his SSL certificate was revoked.

What do we learn from this: Give correct whois information and your domain
will be fine. For trademark disputes there is the UDRP process[3] which not
just Gandi but also most other registrars (including namecheap) have agreed
to.

1: [http://www.gandibar.net/post/2010/04/06/TheRegistercouk-
comm...](http://www.gandibar.net/post/2010/04/06/TheRegistercouk-comments-on-
gandi-s-removal-of-SSL-certificate-for-googlesharingnet)

2:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/11/state_of_ssl_analysi...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/11/state_of_ssl_analysis/print.html)

3: <http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp.htm>

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mattraibert
I've been using gandi for a long time and they've always been good to me. I
like their "no bullshit" philosophy and their respect for my rights as a
domain owner.

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drewcrawford
Can anybody tell me how to transfer domains + DNS to Gandi without downtime?

I'm pretty sure the right way to go about it is to move DNS _first_ , but it
seems Gandi does not support this (unlike Namecheap).

My DNS is hosted with the current registrar which, shall we say, is not
terribly pleased with people leaving. So I would not put it past them to cut
off my DNS service.

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duaneb
I use gandi.net for all my domains. A tiny bit pricier than namecheap, but
excellent service and management.

~~~
azakai
Me too, been using gandi for many years. It isn't the cheapest, but the
service has always been great, and they would never be on the wrong side of
something like SOPA.

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ninjastar99
I've used Gandi for two years now, and my advice can be summed in one word:
avoid. Absolutely atrocious, horrible support. No live chat. No phone number.
And it took them THREE full days and two "reminder" emails to respond to me on
a system critical issue. This is not acceptable - and it quite frankly goes
against their "slogan." On the flip side, I've found Namecheap support and
value to be far greater. So I support them wholeheartedly.

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jyap
I previously supported GoDaddy because they were based out of the US and had
local US support.

Same reason I recently switched to NameCheap during the whole 'GoDaddy
supports SOPA' affair.

Gandi.net headquarters is based out of Paris, France (although they do have a
US office).

One thing to bear in mind.

~~~
jc4p
You have to keep in mind that the location of the registar doesn't matter
since SOPA lets the US government go directly to Verisign.

~~~
rhizome
Verisign is still vulnerable to alternative DNS regimes.

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antimora
Few days I tried to move my GoDaddy domain to Gandi.net, and GoDaddy denied my
request because apparently the domain is registered privately. Why should I
expose my name just to transfer?

~~~
soult
You should have asked yourself that question before you registered at Godaddy.
If you do not want your name to be associated with your domain, you are now
locked in forever. To be honest, I don't even know if other registrars do it
any different. (I only know that Nearlyfreespeech.net does not lock you in
that way, but not about others like namecheap.)

Gandi.net does not offer full whois privacy by the way, so your name will
always be revealed.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Note though that it is just your name and not other associated information.

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fdb
On a related note, does anybody here use Gandi's VPS services? The pricing
seems interesting but I don't know how reliable they are.

~~~
r4vik
I used them for a while and performance was better than Linode (I used
baltimore datacentre) but what made me stop was the lack of automatic billing.

After that I switched to slicehost who's equivalent VM performs even better
however I don't think you can sign up for that anymore now they've been
assimilated by Rackspace.

Didn't have any unscheduled downtime over 6 months on Gandi.

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renownedmedia
If only they were doing this a few days ago when I transfered a handfull...

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bmelton
At $15 for a .com, they're almost double what I'd pay at either Namecheap or
Name.com.

I couldn't find it easily, but are there better prices for transfers?

~~~
absconditus
How is such a small amount of money even a concern for most tech companies and
people? This is an honest question.

~~~
nkassis
I don't like mentality like you represent in this post, not everyone who buys
domains is a funded tech company or anything like that. In the end if a
company is offering the same service at a lower price why would you not go
with that one? What makes you think Gandi.net is worth more than Namecheap?
They seem to offer the same service and ethics as Gandi. And the difference is
a take out meal where I live, I'll take the sandwich and domain if you give me
the choice.

~~~
rrwhite
I don't like the mentality you represent in this post, not everyone who buys
domains has the time to haggle over $5. The time saved not worrying about $5
could be used to get a take out meal where I live. ;)

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federicof
and if you're a programmer we will donate $5 if you solve our programming
puzzle on <http://fightsopa.org>

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tomx
I like gandi.net, but struggled and failed to justify using them for domains
at work.

The third word on their site is an expletive. This made it too difficult to
justify in a Powerpoint presentation.

~~~
cyrus_
Don't put their slogan on a Powerpoint presentation then. Also, your corporate
culture could use some lightening up (you may not have the power to do this,
just saying.)

