There are hundreds of ICANN accredited registrars and even more web sites that offer various services regarding domain registration and administration. The mere number of choices and their combinations is overwhelming.
The purpose of this discussion is to share experiences and compare prices/services of as many providers as possible, so we can all make an educated choice next time we register a domain. I would concentrate on systems that offer full-featured domain registration and leave outfree systems such as NameZero. Those can be a separate topic.
When I registered my first domain more than two years ago, Network Solutions was still the only registrar, but there were already quite a few web sites that offered various services on top of plain vanilla domain registration.
I didn’t need web hosting and/or mail server, but I was very interested in mail aliases and web redirection. I have chosen to register through MyDomain.com since they offered the best package for a one-time fee of (if I remember well) $25.
I haven’t regretted my choice so far. MyDomain improved their already very good package considerably over the past two years, constantly adding new features with no extra charge. They became free (not even aone-time fee) and they switched from Network Solutions to NamesDirect offering even lower registrar fees. Right now you can register for mere $15/year! One of other advantages of NamesDirect is complete control of your WHOIS record (no one can read my address and telephone number from it any more).
Continued in next message…