Reg.ru sucks

The following is a recollection of things I went through while using Reg.ru as my domain name registrar. Needless to say, none of them were positive.

There are 2 main issues with it, and my brain can't comprehend how they can possibly happen at the same time:

First, they ask you to give them your passport data. Yes, this is not a joke. It's supposedly optional, but they really want you to do it because they take away your ability to do a bunch of stuff like withdrawing your money back or transferring account ownership if you don't. This point will also become relevant later.

Second, there's no TOTP two-factor authentication. The only option is SMS-based two-factor authentication, using 4-digit codes if that wasn't bad enough already. Not giving the user a choice to avoid SIM swapping attacks is a pretty shitty thing to do, if you ask me, especially when you're dealing with sensitive data.

Before you enter your card credentials, you'll notice the elephant in the room: everything is roughly twice as expensive as you'd expect. Don't believe me? Let's compare the prices (transfer only, without the discounts) at the time of writing:

Reg.ru (the transfer/renewal price is only shown when you hover over a TLD):

• .com: $22.67
• .online: $50.65
• .zone: $63.20
• .co: $71.85
• .ru: $10.98

Porkbun:

• .com: $10.37
• .online: $26.24
• .zone: $26.24
• .co: $22.97
• .ru: N/A

Hover:

• .com: $17.99
• .online: $34.99
• .zone: $39.99
• .co: $27.99
• .ru: N/A

So yeah, unless you want a .ru domain, this isn't good.

In addition to that, however, they charge you for WHOIS privacy for non-Russian domains. It's not much — $2.2 a year — but I can't emphasize enough how fucking braindead this decision is in the modern world. WHOIS privacy is absolutely essential for individual people, so you don't have much choice. This is effectively a "fuck you, give us even more money".

Now, the last thing I want to point out here is sort of my fault. Reg.ru apparently doesn't support DNSSEC for anything but a handful of TLDs, and I forgot to disable it before transferring my domain name to them, making my website stuck in a limbo. It took the support 4 days to resolve this, and the wait was infuriating, but oh well. I guess now I know that this is an issue that can happen.

There are none. They offer stuff unrelated to domain names, like VPSes and website hosting, but virtually everyone offers these, so it's not anything special. I myself haven't used any of them, so I won't comment on it.

In terms of domain names, they offer exactly the same things as everyone else, like a DNS server and paid TLS certificates that you don't need because you can get them for free from Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL, or a million other places. Hilariously, they also offer printed "domain ownership certificates" which, as far as I can tell, serve zero useful purpose.

If you ever decide that their service isn't worth your money, oh boy, you're in for a treat. You can't just enable domain transfer and copy the authinfo key. No-no, instead you have to leave a request to get it emailed to you. Lost the email? Tough shit, now you have to wait a month for your next attempt. Didn't get the email in the first place? Guess what, you have to wait for them to "process" your request. They don't specify how long it should take for international domains, but for .ru it may take up to 3 motherfucking days. For me, it took a day.

But what if you don't want to transfer anything? Can you just painlessly disown a domain? No, you have to contact the support and attach your passport data. That's right, you can buy a domain without giving them your passport but you can't get rid of it. How convenient, you assholes! My eyes couldn't believe it when I discovered that.

None of this should be necessary. It achieves nothing but making the process of leaving them as tedious as possible so you don't bother and pay up. This is the domain name equivalent of gym subscriptions that you can buy online but can't cancel without several unholy rituals.

On 2024-09-19, I was contacted by someone claiming to be a backlink specialist for Internet companies. I don't know if they were a Reg.ru employee, but judging by their question, I tend to believe they were: They were asking if they could get a "link on my blog", likely hinting at a sponsored post, while asking about this post. No, you can't. I have not and will not accept money or any other kind of favors to put anything on my website.

Commercialization has already ruined the Web in the past 2 decades, filling search results with slop generated by dishonest people (sponsored posts), slop generated by people who value money over everything else ("search engine optimized" posts), and recently, slop generated by machines that can't think but can speak well enough to imitate the other 2 groups (AI-generated posts). Regardless of how well you're paid, your decision to contribute to complete erosion of trust on the Internet is never admirable. You deserve better than that. Go home and rethink your life.

Reg.ru offers nothing that makes them worth it and treats you like a money cow, not a customer. Don't buy from them.