There are no free domains without a catch. Your example happens to be "free domain, when you pay us money", which is stretching the definition of free.
I do not understand this. They say repeatedly “free” on the first link you posted but all the links I checked required payment up front and an increased fee for renewal. I’m not certain by what definition that counts as “free”. Maybe it’s free for them after the ad redirect they tried to hide between the registrar link?
Domain registration happens through an established registrar who collects fees. There are no free-as-in-beer top level domains that I’m aware of.
I would love to be wrong, because I own more than a couple domains myself.
You need to be careful, because they are enticing with free and then trying to charge. Free subdomains are easier to obtain, but there are some domains in "off-TLDs" that can be obtained. The list of those changes over time.
Honestly, though, I wouldn't use those for an actual business. The conversation was about how to subvert using domains as identification.
> USD $10 per year might sound like a lot, but how about USD $1 per top-level domain for the first year?! If you manage to gain any sort of traffic in that year, the domain will practically pay for itself!
> Since mid-January 2023, all Freenom-based domains (.tk, .ml, .ga, .cf, .gq) are down and not available
> .free launch dates will be forthcoming.
That’s one weird website with possibly some free subdomains.
Well, that's to some degree affected by the contents of this other article that came on the home page of HN the very next day. [1]
That article describes Facebook having brought suit against freenom for giving out free domains, because they were primarily used by criminals. There will be another free domain provider. There always is. But, this also makes the point that the number and impact of these free domains is huge. Spammers use them to spam, and this is one reason why domains should not be considered to have any gravitas as an auth mechanism for identity.
From that article:
Freenom is the domain name registry service provider for
five so-called “country code top level domains”
(ccTLDs), including .cf for the Central African
Republic; .ga for Gabon; .gq for Equatorial Guinea;
.ml for Mali; and .tk for Tokelau.
Freenom has always waived the registration fees for
domains in these country-code domains, presumably as a
way to encourage users to pay for related services, such
as registering a .com or .net domain, for which Freenom
does charge a fee.
On March 3, 2023, social media giant Meta sued Freenom
in a Northern California court, alleging cybersquatting
violations and trademark infringement. The lawsuit also
seeks information about the identities of 20 different
“John Does” — Freenom customers that Meta says have been
particularly active in phishing attacks against
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users.
and
“The five ccTLDs to which Freenom provides its services
are the TLDs of choice for cybercriminals because
Freenom provides free domain name registration services
and shields its customers’ identity, even after being
presented with evidence that the domain names are being
used for illegal purposes,” the complaint charges. “Even
after receiving notices of infringement or phishing by
its customers, Freenom continues to license new
infringing domain names to those same customers.”
This discussion is about whether domain names can serve as identity not about me proving I can create a domain on the Internet.
However, here is a free subdomain I've done for you. I created http://hnretroid.mooo.com/, added an A record, and pointed it at 209.216.230.240, which is news.ycombinator.com.
You can also look at the article that appeared on the home page here at HN the very next day after this discussion you and I had. The article talks about Facebook suing one of these registrars for giving out free domain names to criminals, even after being shown that their customers were performing criminal activities with the domains. [1]
There will be another free domain service. There always has and always will be, unfortunately. There always will be something to fill that void. In the same way that legitimate actors write legitimate apps, criminals have their own ecosystems on which they rely for their income.
