Apr 16, 2003 11:52 AM
11370 Views
(Updated Apr 23, 2003 01:32 PM)
If you have a website, do yourself a favour and read on.
There are four 'free' domain registration site that I know of :
http://www.now.nu : gives you a https://<username>.now.nu address
http://www.namezero.com : gives you a https://<username>.com address
http://www.dot.tk : gives you a https://<username>.tk address
http://www.cjb.net : gives you a https://<username>.cjb.net address
Of these, namezero seems ideal, but there'a catch - it's free for a limited period of time, and you keep getting emails from namezero, asking you to secure your free site (i.e. pay for it), or you will lose it. I don't think it's worth the bother.
http://www.cjb.net offers you a host of services :
Subdomain forwarding, which means that if you have a folder called www16.brinkster.com/nikhilpahwa/content , it can be directly accessed as https://nikhilpahwa.cjb.net/content . (Just so you know, https://nikhilpahwa.cjb.net doesn't exist. )
URL cloaking, which means that throughout the visit to your site, your site address will remain https://nikhilpahwa.cjb.net, and no visitor will directly know that www16.brinkster.com/nikhilpahwa/content exits
Mail forwarding, which means that people can email you at nikhil@nikhilpahwa.cjb.net
Mail aliases, you can set up a hundred similar email addresses : nikhil@nikhilpahwa.cjb.net, abc@nikhilpahwa.cjb.net, dog@nikhilpahwa.cjb.net and so on.
They also have a Guestbook, Forum and Stats. More details at https://cjb.net/features.html Why am I not recommeding it? : They have a banner, and as far as I know, it's not possible to turn the banner off. Plus the double dot's in the address sometimes put people off. (It puts me off)
http://www.now.nu offers a little less than cjb.net - there's no free guestbook, no free forum etc etc, but one thing stands out : No Advertisments !
The minus point ? The double dot's in the address, and the unfamiliar '.nu' You can check out the details at https://now.nu/
Now here's what I do recommend :
http://www.dot.tk
Why '.tk'? What does it stand for? '.tk' stand's forTokelau. It's a tiny island near West Samoa, and by near, they mean a 37 hrs boat trip away. It's got a population of 1500, and started the Tokelau Internet Project to raise money for health and education for their citizens. They're trying to achieve 1,000,000 users, so that they can market the .tk address.
Pro's:
Free
Email forwarding : you can set up an email address like xyz@xyz.tk and receive your email at your normal email address - xyz@hotmail.com. Unlike cjb.net, you can only set up 5 such addresses.
Statistics : tells you where your visitors are coming from.
3 domain names for each account : each dot.tk account is registered using an email address. You may claim 3 free domain names for each account. Also, if in the future, you want to cancel one account, and take a new name - it's possible.
Option to remove the banner - you can choose not to have a popup banner on your site - so, effectively, No Advertisments.
URL cloaking
Con's :
If you don't want any ad's, you have to login into your dot.tk account, and then disable it.
If your site registers less than 30 unique visitors every 90 days, then you lose your domain name. You cannot re-register a domain name, if you lose it. You have to buy it.
I liked the site so much - mostly advertisment free and flexible usage, that I actually chose to keep the banner on to let people know where I've got my domain name from.
Links :
namezero
Homepage : https://namezero.com
cjb.net
Homepage : https://cjb.net
Details : https://cjb.net/features.html
now.nu
Homepage and details : https://now.nu
dot.tk
Homepage : https://dot.tk/
Details : https://dot.tk/vc00802.html#free
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My Website : https://nixxin.tk
My Dot.tk Ambassador number : 18525
