Are .uk, .ru, .win domains blocked by a lot of filters? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 10:52 Hi all I’m looking to buy some custom domains and narrowed down to these reasonably priced ones. I believe they all have whois protection. I’ve read that lots of sites block .xyz domains because .xyz domains are notoriously known for spam. Does anyone know if .uk, .ru, .win domains are mostly considered clean and not normally blocked? Thanks in advance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jusepal · 2023-10-01 10:56 .uk probably not. But higher chance of getting blackholed or rejected with .ru and .win. Why not just .com .net .org? They're reasonably priced on spaceship, cloudflare, porkbun. They'll save yourself the hassles of playing mind game thinking about your mail deliverability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 11:06 Thanks for the input! I see. I’m looking at these because they are half the price of a .com. I thought if I’m going to be having a domain very long term, I’ll eventually be saving a lot of money. Curious, is the reasoning for .uk probably not going to get blocked as often because .uk is a country tld? If so, curious why .ru isn’t in the same category ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QuatschFisch · 2023-10-01 11:14 .ru is the tld of Russia. With recent events a huge amount of spam and random attacks coming from Russia, many decided to just block russian TLDs and IP addresses entirely in their firewall. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DaveInGlasgow · 2023-10-01 11:22 Don't you need to be a UK resident to obtain a dot uk domain? Was the case to start with. In fact many domains were unavailable to register being 'reserved' for existing .co.uk etc holders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jusepal · 2023-10-01 11:27 Because .ru is known for mail spam, hacks and generally questionable site. Plus the exact same reason you're trying to get them, they're cheap. The $4-5 tld also attracted mass spammer trying to minimize their initial cost instead of the $9-10 tld. Really just get the .com .net .org, $5 more but with far less headache. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheesecaketree · 2023-10-01 12:19 If you don't target the UK or Russia (or any other country) you shouldn't really use their tlds. They are country specific for a reason. And yes, .ru definitely gets blocked by a lot of filters because a lot of spam comes from there. I personally would never answer a mail from a .ru domain because I don't know anyone from Russia and I don't have any business with the country at all. And I would also be sceptical if someone with .fr writes to me because I also don't know anyone from France. So just use your local tld or a more general one like com, org net or the fancy new ones like dev or app. I mean, no one's really stopping you from using the tld of a different country, but at least choose one with a somewhat good reputation and probably also you target language ---------------------------------------------------------------------- robearded · 2023-10-01 12:35 "saving a lot of money" 5 bucks every year, or 50 every 10 years Define a lot of money ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 12:51 Not sure how you got upvoted so much without anyone correcting you. No you don’t need to be a UK resident or citizen. The reserved policy was only up till 2019. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- techramblings · 2023-10-01 12:56 .uk should be absolutely fine. Nominet (the UK registrar) has been around for decades, and is a member-owned not-for-profit company, which is probably why the domain prices are comparatively low. But whilst there aren't particularly strict rules on UK domains, using a .uk domain name if you have no connection to the UK would be a bit weird - much the same for any other country's TLD. You'll probably want to avoid Russia (.ru) for obvious reasons. In terms of the shiny new-fangled TLDs like .win, .xyz, etc. etc. - they are prone to being caught by spam filters. That's not to say they're going to be always or automatically blocked, simply that they will potentially get a higher spam score than 'traditional' TLDs. Note that this seems to apply to even some domains which have been around for a long time, but are still not 'mainstream' (things like .biz, for example). Of course, all of the above might be irrelevant if you're not planning on using the domain for outgoing mail. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- throwaway234f32423df · 2023-10-01 12:58 you do not, no if you use a non-UK address, your WHOIS information will probably display a "Nominet was not able to verify the registrant's address" notice. in theory they can validate non-UK addresses but in practice they're really bad at it and I haven't found a way to get rid of the notice ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 12:59 >Definitely a lot of money I love your sarcasm. FYI, in my country usd is 6x my currency. So that’s equivalent to an extra $300 a decade, if I hold it for my next 60 years. That is $1800 *extra* that I’ll be paying for a domain. If you try to sell me a domain right now that I can keep for life, $1800 is a lot, let alone $3600 if it’s a .com (not even taking in account the inflation). So yes if I get to choose, I’ll definitely at least consider the $1800 string of letters. But hey, your wit certainly has a lot of weight ---------------------------------------------------------------------- throwaway234f32423df · 2023-10-01 13:01 .UK is a weird TLD. For example, transfers between registrars are free (you don't have to extend the domain by a year are transferring), and there's a "push" transfer system instead of a "pull" system. You also have the ability to do certain management of the domain through Nominet instead of your registrar. Unfortunately, none of this seems to work very well and it took me months to successfully transfer my .UK, I even tried using Nominet's paid transfer option to force the issue and it still failed over and over (although I always got a refund). Eventually it just worked for no apparent reason. .win is fine. It might be on some extremely aggressive spam filters but it's unlikely to affect you much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 13:06 Thanks for the great insight! I’ll have to look more into the .uk transfer system. I don’t think I’ll ever be transferring out of Cloudflare and I don’t think Cloudflare will ever go down. The only case would be if Cloudflare sells their registrar to another company that I despise ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 13:08 Great input, thanks! Yeah I wasn’t planning on using these domains for communication much unless I need to ---------------------------------------------------------------------- throwaway234f32423df · 2023-10-01 13:09 I was trying to transfer into Cloudflare, shortly after they added support for .UK, so maybe it was just a problem on their end. Still, I had to jump through hoops with my old registrar as well since the old registrar has to actually initiate the "push" to the new registrar... I had to use their API for this because the functionality didn't exist on their website. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bonsailinse · 2023-10-01 13:30 Even 30 bucks a year are $2.5 a month. I don’t know where you live and what you earn but… it’s still only $2.5. If you cannot afford that then I wonder how you would afford everything else, hardware, electricity, maintenance, etc. Sure, you can choose how you spend your money and you got a lot of answers in here but don’t react to someone just wanting to help you in such a way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PolicyArtistic8545 · 2023-10-01 13:36 A .com is $10 a year. You’re not saving very much money at all and dealing with the headaches of using a non standard tld is not worth it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PolicyArtistic8545 · 2023-10-01 13:42 It’s over a 60 year span, of course the number is going to be high. Average income is $31000 in Ameerica and if I reduce that by a factor of 6, that is $5166/yr. $10/yr on a domain is literally 0.2% of annual yearly income. Feel free to provide numbers for your area but you’re not going to convince me that it’s a lot of money. Especially since you are using some device and internet service to make this reddit post. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MistiInTheStreet · 2023-10-01 13:46 Check for the .ovh if you look to save money. They are more than cheap like 3eur per year ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DaveInGlasgow · 2023-10-01 14:00 Because it was a question, you don't correct a question, you answer it. Or perhaps there was other useful content. Whatever, no need to take it out on me because lots of folk don't think much of your idea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thekrautboy · 2023-10-01 14:03 Just fyi, you could sign up for a free domain from **eu.org** if your issue is mostly with price. Copy/pasting a old comment of mine: ___ **https://nic.eu.org** gives out free domains in the format of `example.eu.org` Yes those are "real domains", not "subdomains" of eu.org as it may appear. `.eu.org` is a "[public suffix](https://publicsuffix.org)" like `.co.uk` or `.com.au` etc. These are **not** a "scam" like Freenom or similar things. The big differences are: * `eu.org` is their own registry, nobody is taken these domains and control away from them. * They are a non-profit organization. You get no ads, no spam, nothing. * You are the rightful owner of the domain, you have full control over it. * You do **not** need to be a resident of the EU or anything, or provide any such proof. * You **do** need to provide a name and address when signing up, but you *could* provide a fake address if you want, see below. * You **can** select to keep the provided address out of the public whois information (often called a privacy option or similar). So you can provide a real name and address if you want to. If you chose to supply fake information, keep in mind that if there ever is a issue about the legal ownership of the domain, you might be in a tough spot to proof that you are that fake person... For typical homelab/selfhosting usage, this probably doesnt matter. You can, and should, have nameservers running somewhere and supply them to nic.eu.org. To keep it free i recommend using **[deSEC.io](https://www.desec.io)** which works perfectly well with them, including **DNSSEC**. deSEC are also a non-profit, no ads or personal data collection etc. and strict data protection laws because they are based in germany. You can have up to 15 domains under one account. There are no paid accounts or anything. In case you need more than 15 domains, you could probably use multiple accounts, or simply contact them and they are happy to increase your limit, for free. **The only actual downside** to `eu.org` is because they are just a simple non-profit service, their validation process for new domain signups appears to be done manually, which means it usually **takes a few days but even up to two weeks**. Just be patient and wait for an email to notify you of acceptance. Once that is done they provide **no real support**, you have full access to the domain settings through the panel at nic.eu.org when you log in. Any changes you make are automated and there are no manual wait times etc after the initial wait. Personally i am running around 20 of these domains by now, most of them under deSEC and its working perfectly. The initial wait is of course annoying, but thats a one-time thing only. I had a few that were granted within a day, some after two weeks, most of them were around a week. Since none of these are time-sensitive for me, i am more than happy to "pay that as the price" for receiving full control and a very stable and reliable service. **TL;DR If you are a complete beginner with all of selfhosting etc, it might be better to spend money on some things to actually receive support. But if you either are experienced enough, or you want to learn and tinker, this is a great and really free alternative.** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DaveInGlasgow · 2023-10-01 14:07 As you seem t be looking to save cash, how much is a .uk at Cloudflare? FWIW they are usually £7 in the UK but can be had for £5. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DaveInGlasgow · 2023-10-01 14:09 Are you really blocking dot uk? Its a reputable TLD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PolicyArtistic8545 · 2023-10-01 14:11 I did misspeak on that. Uk is fine but any traffic going there is suspicious in my network. In unifi, I have 39 blocked countries using geoip data and block the bad ones also in pihole Incase any of these domains resolves to US ip addresses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PolicyArtistic8545 · 2023-10-01 14:12 I did misspeak on that. Uk is fine but any traffic going there is suspicious in my network. In unifi, I have 39 blocked countries using geoip data and block the bad ones also in pihole incase any of these domains resolves to US ip addresses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 14:52 >It’s over a 60 year span, of course the number is going to be high. Yeah my point still stands, the number is indeed high and you’re just agreeing with me. Whether it’s over 60 years or not, if I get to save an amount equivalent to $1800, I will definitely consider it. I love how you guys are telling me how to spend my money over the period of my life lol, literally grinning while writing this cause it’s pretty hilarious ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 14:59 I’m going to let you choose between two domains to buy, one for $3600 and one for $1800. Tell me you don’t at least consider saving $1800 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 15:02 >Because it was a question, you don't correct a question, you answer it. Lol >Whatever, no need to take it out on me because lots of folk don't think much of your idea. Lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 15:08 On CF it’s $4.xx. I like Cloudflare because they don’t markup the price from the registry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lipuss · 2023-10-01 15:12 I see, will check them out thanks! With so many people getting butt hurt on my behalf for thinking of saving money in exchange of potential hiccups, does .ovh get blocked by a fair bit of filters in your experience? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MistiInTheStreet · 2023-10-01 15:16 No idea, I didn’t do research regarding if .ru or .yxz were blocked widely. We have a pretty strong filtering policy at my company and at the end we don’t blocked those in a wide way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bombero_kmn · 2023-10-01 15:26 you left out a very important point: that $1800 savings is projected over 60 years. I'm not your accountant but it seems like a poor return in exchange for a second or third rate TLD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nosyrbllewe · 2023-10-01 15:32 If you want a cheap domain, you can try .top. It is less than $5 a year on Porkbun (which include WhoIs protection) and is a gTLD, so you don't have any country issues. I can't say how often it gets blocked though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-10-01 15:42 > using a .uk domain name if you have no connection to the UK would be a bit weird - much the same for any other country's TLD There can be good reasons to use a ccTLD. For example I use domains from countries with strong privacy laws^(1) for my personal stuff – email, personal websites for friends and family, self-hosting projects. Since these are domains that are not usually seen by the general public it makes no difference what the TLD is. ^(1) If anybody's interested see [the Netim domain list](https://www.netim.com/en/domain-name/extensions-list) and filter for "Europe" and "ccTLD", then enter each domain's page and click on "whois privacy". *In theory* all EU members should protect their national registry data as per GDPR but some of them weaken the protection in certain cases (for example if you register as a corporation, or if you're a foreign national). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- idegbeteg · 2023-10-01 16:33 I have a .xyz domain, currently I'm only using it as a custom domain on Protonmail. I have SPF, DKIM, etc. configured and it's working fine, my mails are going through. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oddllama25 · 2023-10-01 16:58 I paid 30 bucks for 7 years of a .win domain that I've been using for quite a while with 0 problems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LittleTree4 · 2023-10-01 17:54 If you are going to get a domain for email use you will want either a 2 or 3 letter TLD as a lot of email systems refuse to accept a 4 or more letter TLD emaill address. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kmisterk · 2023-10-01 18:00 ## Post Removed Hey, lipuss! Thanks for your submission on selfhosted. Your post has been removed due to a violation of the purpose of the subreddit: **Self Hosting** ## Not Self-Hosted When it comes to posts regarding applications in this subreddit, they must feature a self-hosted tool, or a tool that *can be* self-hosted, or some kind of related information, help request, or otherwise related to a tool that is something that one can self-host. If you believe this post *is in fact* relevant to /r/selfhosted, feel free to [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to= /r/selfhosted&subject=Removed For Not Being Self- Hosted&message=[Removed Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/16wy2ol/-/\)) with your concerns.