o_O
How is that different from any other domain name provider?
I mean, that’s some serious tin-foil hat shit.
It is A LOT different.
With any other paid domain you have a contract that says “domain is yours as long as you pay.”
With freenom, your contract says “domain is ours but you can use it as long as we say.”
If you want a domain, pay for it.
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I dont see
http://www.freenom.com/en/termsandconditions.html
Have been using them for years, their DNS is not always as fast as, one would like or claimed, but afaik lowest prices for paid domains ever.
Their free domains should not be used commercially, you do what you want with paid ones.
Exactly, clean https (without security warnings everywehere and everytime) needs a certificate which is valid for a certain domain. If you then browse to this domain, the browser checks if the name in the certificate is that one where you browsed, among other things. This is simply designed to work with Domainnames, and not with IPs.
Get a proper domain, its not expensive at all.
the correct sentence would be: “AFAIK it is not possible to get a signed/trusted certificate for an IP address.”
so any selfsigned certificate will do. because anyway you have to manually trust it with a click on “don’t care, go on.” in your browser.
juts tested with my playbook:
unless the snap installations sets “header Strict-Transport-Security”. in this case it must be a signed certificate that fits to your domain.
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You say that, but you haven’t explained why.
And the Mozilla licence says the same. Are you claiming that Firefox users might suddenly have their browser taken from them?
Freenom (and other free domain providers like No-IP) still have to abide by the laws of the jurisdiction in which they reside. Freenom provides .tk domains, which is the TLD of Tokelau, a dependant territory of New Zealand. This means Freenom’s .tk domains are required to abide by the consumer protection laws of New Zealand. And Freenom itself is based in the Netherlands, meaning the company is required to abide by the consumer protection laws of the European Union. That makes my .tk domain better protected than domains from a US-based company like No-IP, where there are virtually no consumer protections.
If you want a domain for a business, pay for it and get even more protections. But for a home or personal domain, any of the free domain providers are fine, and Freenom has been one of the best for years.
If you disagree, provide some evidence or reason to support your position. Otherwise you’re just repeating bullshit claims like you’re Donald Trump at a political rally.
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you may try to use the reverse dns name of your linode server.
https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/manager/remote-access/
scaleway server names are like xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.pub.cloud.scaleway.com. and you get an letsencrypt certificate for them.
but letsencrypted doesn’t issue certificates for aws names like ec2-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com.
so i cna’t tell you if it’s working for linode.
This is not the point.
Please read this extract from their terms and conditions:
Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, we hereby grant you a limited, non-exclusive, personal, non-transferable license to use FREE DOMAIN and the domain name provided to you in connection therewith. You shall retain such right to use theservice for so long as you comply with each of the terms of this Agreement, and for so long as we make the service available to you.
This Agreement shall terminate on the earlier to occur of the following events: (i) voluntary termination by you for any or no reason pursuant to Section 1, (ii) termination by Freenom for any or no reason [and more…]
Compare it with a proper registrar:
You are the owner of the domain name, meaning that You arethe person or registered organization that has been declared asthe owner of a domain name upon its registration, and visible inthe public Whois database, which may be accessed for example,at “https://www.gandi.net/whois” (hereinafter the “Customer” or"You", “Your”, or “Owner Contact”).
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almost. but it’s more like:
Exactly, clean https (without security warnings everywehere and everytime) needs a signed certificate which is signed by a trusted authority and is valid for your url. regardless if it’s an fqdn or an ip address. If you then browse to this domain, the browser checks if the name in the certificate is that one where you browsed and is signed by an authority your browser trusts, among other things like if the certificate is revoked.
This is simply designed to work with Domainnames, and not with IPs.
That would work as well with ip addresses. But no signing authority would trust your ip address. Because you can’t be the owner of an ip address. Not like you are an owner of a domain.
So you can trust yourself: Setting Up Certificate Authorities (CAs) in Firefox | Firefox for Enterprise Help
The cheapest possible real domain name is 99cents/year, Steve.
Most domains are under $20/year.
This is not true, not true at all: Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
And please, don’t take me for someone that wants you to spend money for no reason, I am perfectly happy to help people setting up self signed certs.
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That IS the point. All free software and services have the same clauses in their licenses or terms of service. ALL OF THEM. Calling out one specific service for stating they can terminate the service for whatever reason, as if it’s somehow unique, is dishonest at best.
Now you’re being overtly dishonest. A “proper” registrar? Seriously?
“Real” domain? How are you defining a “real” domain compared to a “fake” domain? The language you are using demonstrates your bias and lack of understanding how any of this works.
Why would you link to gnu in order to describe Mozilla’s MPL? Gnu was founded by a sex offender, you should have linked directly to Mozilla’s description of their license. The Mozilla license has a whole section on termination. Debian Linux even includes “Iceweasel” instead of Firefox in order to avoid violating the Mozilla license. I’m typing this in “Waterfox”, that treads carefully not to lose their access to MPL licensed code.
Self signed certificates are rubbish in a modern world of mobile devices. It’s incredibly difficult to piece together the various mobile apps that will talk to personal email servers, or sync contacts or calendars, or sync photos and files, unless you have a CA certificate.
What are you envisioning here? Just a vanity website? Then who cares what free domain you get? Change it if you need to. Or are you talking about something closer to my setup, where my phone connects to my personal email server, any photos I take are automatically uploaded to my server, and contacts are calendar are synchronised.
I used to use self-signed certificates, but I needed to use dodgy and unreliable apps to make things work. As soon as I was able to get Let’s Encrypt certificates for my perfectly reliable Freenom .tk domain, everything became easier.
I’ve been using a .tk domain for years, and you still haven’t provided a single reason why Freenom would take the domain away on a whim. All you have is hyperbole and links to sex offender domains.
Ok. I am out of here.
Yeah, I’d quit if I knew I was wrong, too.
Let it go, Steve. You are conflating “free domains” from freenom with third level domains from dynamic dns providers, the two are not even close, and I have no problems with dynamic dns providers.
My problem is with freenom and with the fact that a free domain you get from them is not your domain, it’s their domain. This is unique among registrars. It’s not the same anywhere else.
You need a fqdn? Go for any dynamic dns provider. I’d suggest duckdns.org, freedns.afraid.org, or nsupdate.info. Just don’t get duped by freenom and their “free” domains that are not actually yours.
Have I made myself clear?
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As opposed to conflating “fake” domains to “real” domains?
And no, you haven’t made yourself clear. In what way is a domain from Freenom not “yours”, but a domain from duckdns, freedns, or nsupdate safely “yours”?
This is not conflation at all. Is a domain real when is not yours? How is a domain real if freenom can pull it from under your feet whenever they want? (and this does not happen anywhere else.)
Neither is mine. But all the others never claimed I could have a second-level domain name for free.
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I’ve had a Freenom domain for years. Freenom emails me reminders to renew every year, and there have been no restrictions or demands or control over my domain. So yes, my Freenom domain is “mine”.
Freenom said I could have a second level domain for free. And I’ve had had a second level domain for free for over half a decade. I was completely unaware I’ve successfully been using a “fake” domain all this time. 
Dude, since @trymeout seems to struggle on basic cert stuff, i wanted to give him a simplified rundown, not overwhelm him with the exact details. No need to correct me here, the omissions where not an accident 
Also this discussion is derailing heavily into the off-topic realm. Mayby if you, @DarkSteve and @Giuseppe want to discuss the pros and cons of different Domainregistrars consider making a dedicated thread for that.
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@trymeout, for how I see it you have two options:
- you get a self signed certificate, and that’s it.
- you get a full qualified domain name from duckdns, you point it to your ip address (you don’t need to update it, since your ip won’t change that often) and get a certificate from let’s encrypt (procedure goes like this: install certbot, run certbot, answer certbot’s questions, done.)
If, in future, you want your own domain, shop around and be wary of extreme discounts, they are nearly always for the fist year, renewals can be more expensive. It’s a shady business. I suggest gandi or 1984.is.