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dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

3 edits

dillyhammer

Premium Member

EasyDNS replacement

Hi all,

I've been a user, huge fan and big supporter of EasyDNS since time immemorial. All that changed this morning with a simple domain renewal. Got an email thereafter thanking me for registering with their new ticketing system, along with my password (read: plain text transport). I did not register. Got an email shortly after that, with a new ticket number, asking me to attend that software and submit to a customer satisfaction survey. I did not submit a ticket. I since discovered that the entire system is outsourced to a company in India, domain registration out of Singapore, operating as cloud-based software-as-a-service. All this, without my permission or knowledge.

Thanks, but no thanks.

So I'm looking for a replacement for EasyDNS so I can get my shit off there.

Some requirements:

1. I do not need DNS provision, doing that elsewhere.
2. Cannot have any contact information other than my own in the domain registrations. (Some companies insist on having themselves as one of the contacts)
3. Must be Canadian
4. Must not outsource offshore.
5. Must accept PayPal. (edit)

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance folks.

(edit - I'm doing my own due diligence and research folks, just asking for suggestions based on your experience)

Mike
graniterock
Premium Member
join:2003-03-14
London, ON

graniterock

Premium Member

I am happy with domainsatcost.ca and have been using them for about 8 years. They say they are Canadian and you can definitely do number two. Best of luck in your search.

dillyhammer
START me up
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join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

Yep, thanks for that.

After a little research, domainsatcost.ca appears to be a decent option. They seem to have experienced some growth recently that has slowed down their support response times.

In the reviews I saw, some on Facebook, they appear to be good provided you don't need any hand-holding.

One reviewer that slammed them pretty hard mentioned Namespro.ca. They currently have a transfer promo, under $10 a pop, with fairly decent reviews. I have 12 to transfer, so I'm happy about potentially saving $60.

I'm so pissed I even have to be doing this. Haven't heard a peep from EasyDNS since I sent my last email explaining my posture on this, which they asked me to do. 'Course, not much they can say if this is the direction they're heading in.

Mike

Cliffy
Premium Member
join:2003-06-29
Kitchener, ON

Cliffy to dillyhammer

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to dillyhammer
I transferred all my domains to »www.hover.com/ and have been happy with them.

nitzguy
Premium Member
join:2002-07-11
Sudbury, ON

nitzguy to dillyhammer

Premium Member

to dillyhammer
I use mecca internet solutions (ehosting.ca), have used them since 2005 with no issues....because I'm lazy I basically just use them for email, and with renewal of the domain and the hosting package I have, I pay about $52 year taxes incl.

....I don't think they accept paypal, but I'm not 100% sure...my renewal is coming up next month so I can let you know then .

HTH

zong
Premium Member
join:2005-07-21
Scarborough, ON

zong to dillyhammer

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to dillyhammer
I'll second domainsatcost.ca, I've been using them since .ca went live back in the late 90's. all my domains are registered there. relatively good prices.

I beleive they were a cheap subcompany of internic.ca, which was back in the day the first canadian registrar. They used to share an address, and their websites are almost exactly the same. They are the "low cost" brand of internic though and rates are cheaper.

dillyhammer
START me up
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join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

Thanks folks.

ehosting.ca was a bit expensive. At 22.99/year, 12 domains, ouch. I'm paying 15 at EasyDNS.

So I went with Namespro.ca, which I discovered while doing due diligence on domainsatcost.ca. They offered a promo of 9.88 per transfer, which adds a year to the registration at Cira. Significant savings from even their 12.88 registration fee.

Now I'm locked in a crazy circlejerk with EasyDNS' ticket system. I sent an email to their billing department asking them to delete my account. Boom. New ticket. New survey request. I forwarded those to their support asking them to stop doing that. Boom. New ticket, new survey request.

5 tickets and counting.



I did get an email from Mark, the owner, whom I've corresponded with several times over the last decade. Have not responded to it yet.

Mike
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

I see you've already switched so a little late with this reply, but FWIW Namespro would have been who I recommended. Been with them for years and don't have a single complaint.

Zspeed
join:2013-08-30

Zspeed to dillyhammer

Member

to dillyhammer
If I recall well, namespro had a somewhat rudimentary domain record management system. I do not remember them having SPF zone records or email forwarding (there was an add-on service for that I think).

Any changes now? I remember really wanting to use them for their pricing, but finally opted for domainspeople.ca (yup, I know... not so great either, but workable for my .ca domains, 4 more years to go :P)
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

I don't use eithe
said by Zspeed:

If I recall well, namespro had a somewhat rudimentary domain record management system. I do not remember them having SPF zone records or email forwarding (there was an add-on service for that I think)

I only use them as a domain registrar, DNS and Email are hosted elsewhere. But I just went and had a look around, and it looks like still no support for SPF type records (of course you can add them via a TXT record though).

And the email section states "All e-mail plans include numerous features such as unlimited forwards/aliases/auto-responders, private mail servers and webmail", so it looks like forwarding is supported.
Ares45
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join:2007-11-14

Ares45 to dillyhammer

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to dillyhammer
I'm pretty happy with 10dollar.ca so far. I was going to switch a few domains to EasyDNS after seeing how they fought for some clients, but if they're outsourcing to India I'll have nothing to do with them.

dillyhammer
START me up
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join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer to Ree

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to Ree
said by Ree:

I only use them as a domain registrar, DNS and Email are hosted elsewhere.

Ditto. My hosting/DNS provider supports SPF records, though they've stated they'll never support wildcard A records, which is odd.

EasyDNS removed my account, emails have stopped. It's a little sad, my quaint little "DNS shop over on Dufferin" has resorted to offshore outsourcing. Never would have thought they'd do that. Time to move on.

Mike
taraf
join:2011-05-07
Ottawa, ON

taraf

Member

I've been using Sibername for a while, now... »www.sibername.com/en/com ··· sion.php

They're based in Ottawa, and all of their support is done on shore. They really helped me out of a bind when my previous provider went belly up and I needed to transfer domains out on a holiday long weekend, so I can vouch for the quality of the service they provide.

As for whether they accept paypal, no idea. I've been using visa to pay for the domains.

rodjames
Premium Member
join:2010-06-19

rodjames to dillyhammer

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to dillyhammer
I'm the guy who slammed domainsatcost.

dillyhammer
START me up
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join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

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said by rodjames:

I'm the guy who slammed domainsatcost.

Troublemaker!



Well, thanks for that. As a result, I'm with Namespro.ca and they seem terrific. Transfers happened painlessly, in real time, paid with PayPal. Saved some bucks too.

Mike
easydns
Premium Member
join:2014-02-08
Toronto, ON

7 recommendations

easydns to dillyhammer

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to dillyhammer
I'd like to respond, I think anybody who has been a customer of ours for any length of time would like to hear our side of it and what the reality is (briefly, no, we are not "outsourcing everything" to India and yes, we are still the little DNS company on Dufferin St.)

Issue #1: We recently switched ticketing systems. After evaluating a few systems we went with fusion by Kayako, and we went with the self-hosted version. Meaning, all the code and all the data is on our own equipment within our own environment, right here in Canada.

Mike opened a ticket and the thing was just plain annoyingly misconfigured - survey invitations being auto-emailed to him, opening new tickets all the time, etc. It's easy to understand his aggravation (the thing drove me nuts the first few days too).

From there he mistakenly came to the conclusion that we were using the hosted version of Fusion (we're not), and he became concerned about his data and personal details being housed offshore in their environment rather than ours. (Again, it's not. It's right here, never anyplace else).

Issue #2: The wider issue of "we outsource support to India." It is true we have two full-time employees in India. One systems and one email support. They both are there specifically to handle off-hours issues (so our systems guys here get a break from pager duty during the week and so we have an additional pair of eyes handling email support overnight).

The two people we have there were sourced through a decade+ long easyDNS customer who I've had many business dealings with in the past. They work out of his office there but they are our employees and they are every much a part of the easyDNS family as the people here.

That means easyDNS is 18 fulltime employees, 16 here in Canada, 2 in India. I see nothing wrong with this.

When people hear "outsourcing" it conjures up images of giant telcos or banks that just plug it all into a spreadsheet look at the numbers then simply pull the trigger, emptying out entire office buildings here to be replaced by a bunch of zombies reading from scripts over there. We're not doing that.

Over the years we've had our share of mistakes and misadventures and as I said in the past (like when we were completely falsely accused of taking down Wikileaks) "when we screw up, we own it", but the corollary of that is when we see inaccurate or just plain wrong stories attributed to us, we speak up about it.

At the end of the day:

1) We had some hiccups cutting over from the old ticketing system to the new one. We get that and we fix the issues as we become aware of them.

2) We are not "outsourcing everything" to India. I am reluctant to even use the phrase "outsourcing" to describe the simple fact that we have a couple of full time employees in India who work when we're all asleep here. We like this model, we're going to be doing more of it. That doesn't mean we aren't going to keep hiring people here at home. (In the interval since we've added the second India employee we've hired 3 more full time people here).

We have customers in over 100 countries worldwide and one of the biggest ones is India. We're sucking money out of all of those countries and pulling it all back into the economy here, why shouldn't we hire additional people abroad when it helps us deliver better service to our customers?

If any customer has any questions or concerns about any of this, I am always pretty accessible and willing to talk.

My email address is markjr [at] easydns [dot] youknowhat and my office phone number is 1-416-535-8672 ext 225
vincom
join:2009-03-06
Bolton, ON

vincom

Member

not a customer of yours but a fair and well thought out responce, kudos to companies like yours who respond to issues concerning their services and or products

rodjames
Premium Member
join:2010-06-19

rodjames to dillyhammer

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namespro is amazing. I've been with t hem for YEARS.

cc4V
@teksavvy.com

cc4V to easydns

Anon

to easydns
said by easydns:

...

2) We are not "outsourcing everything" to India. I am reluctant to even use the phrase "outsourcing" to describe the simple fact that we have a couple of full time employees in India who work when we're all asleep here. ...

No matter how you rationalize it, it is still outsourcing. I find it difficult to believe that nowhere in Toronto could you find staff to work the night shift. Going to India has nothing to do with 24 hour coverage, it is simply because you can pay so much less to Indian workers.

There is nothing wrong with that, trying to make your business as profitable as possible - that is the end goal - but don't try and sugarcoat it and say it isn't outsourcing or its just to cover night shift, that isn't very honest.

Just my two cents
easydns
Premium Member
join:2014-02-08
Toronto, ON

easydns

Premium Member

Well all of our weekend and holiday support is done here, it made sense given call volumes, etc but to keep the lights on overnight here given that most of the action happens during the day isn't very cost effective, so it's true that's a motivation.

When you're operating a business this small, the alternative isn't to hire locals to work the overnight shift, it's to just not have anybody on overnight at all.

I don't think option #2 works for anyone, customers included.

dillyhammer
START me up
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join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

Meh.

I consider offshore outsourcing of any kind absolutely reprehensible. Many Canadians feel the same way. I won't do it, won't support it, and won't support anyone or any company who does it. If you want to consider what you're doing "a little bit pregnant", that's your prerogative.

Your entitled to do whatever you think is best for you and your customers. Good luck.

Mike
easydns
Premium Member
join:2014-02-08
Toronto, ON

easydns

Premium Member

said by dillyhammer:

Meh.

I consider offshore outsourcing of any kind absolutely reprehensible. Many Canadians feel the same way. I won't do it, won't support it, and won't support anyone or any company who does it.

I could understand your sentiment in cases where businesses are eliminating local jobs to offshore. But in this case we're talking net job creation without losing any locally (again, we've been hiring more here than there).

But given the reality that we live in a highly globalized interdependent economy with extremely complicated supply chains, I don't think anybody can get through a day without consuming or using something that wasn't partially manufactured or serviced overseas.

Again, being a Canadian company with customers all over the world, saying on one hand that it's ok to suck money out of all those local economies and bring it back here; but that turning around and providing jobs in any of those locales is reprehensible strikes me as one-dimensional (I believe foreigners would call that an example of "Western exceptionalism")

(I hope you don't have "Made in China tags on anything in your home or workplace.)

dillyhammer
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dillyhammer

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Good luck to you.

Mike

rednekcowboy
join:2012-03-21

rednekcowboy to easydns

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to easydns
said by easydns:

said by dillyhammer:

Meh.

I consider offshore outsourcing of any kind absolutely reprehensible. Many Canadians feel the same way. I won't do it, won't support it, and won't support anyone or any company who does it.

I could understand your sentiment in cases where businesses are eliminating local jobs to offshore. But in this case we're talking net job creation without losing any locally (again, we've been hiring more here than there).

But given the reality that we live in a highly globalized interdependent economy with extremely complicated supply chains, I don't think anybody can get through a day without consuming or using something that wasn't partially manufactured or serviced overseas.

Again, being a Canadian company with customers all over the world, saying on one hand that it's ok to suck money out of all those local economies and bring it back here; but that turning around and providing jobs in any of those locales is reprehensible strikes me as one-dimensional (I believe foreigners would call that an example of "Western exceptionalism")

(I hope you don't have "Made in China tags on anything in your home or workplace.)

I really won't criticize one way or the other and can understand wanting to have a base of operations in other countries that you have clients in, but I'll take the role of Devil's Advocate for a minute....

I don't know what it's like in Toronto but will assume that it's pretty much the same as Montreal or any other large metropolitan area in Canada. There is a diverse pool of people in this country that not only would be happy to work at night, but also have the necessary language skills to support many overseas clientele. I highly doubt that it will cost you the $2/hour that you can hire over-seas agents for, however you get what you pay for (ever try to call Dell tech support??? I suggest you do sometime to see what kind of service you are providing with your night shift). If all you want is someone to answer the phone in your customers native tongue and file a ticket for your day staff, there are plenty of people that fit that bill that will work for minimum wage.

As a Canadian company, your primary responsibility is to Canada. Providing employment to Canadian citizens is not "sucking money" out of other locales in which you have clientele, it is supporting the country that your company calls home and it's economy. Whether it's 1, 2 or 10 jobs that you give to someone in another country, that is still 1, 2 or 10 jobs that are now gone from Canadians that are qualified enough and have the necessary skills and aptitude to fill. It matters not if you are hiring another 2 or 3 here on top of that, it just means that instead of hiring 5 here, you hired 3 here and 2 over-seas. It's still outsourcing no matter what kind of spin you put on it.
easydns
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join:2014-02-08
Toronto, ON

2 recommendations

easydns

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said by rednekcowboy:

I really won't criticize one way or the other and can understand wanting to have a base of operations in other countries that you have clients in, but I'll take the role of Devil's Advocate for a minute....

I highly doubt that it will cost you the $2/hour that you can hire over-seas agents for, however you get what you pay for (ever try to call Dell tech support??? I suggest you do sometime to see what kind of service you are providing with your night shift).

What does Dell tech support have to do with this? Nothing. We're not Dell and we're not hiring Zombies to read from scripts.

We're hiring qualified people who can handle a technical job and use some judgement.
said by rednekcowboy:

If all you want is someone to answer the phone in your customers native tongue and file a ticket for your day staff, there are plenty of people that fit that bill that will work for minimum wage.

Well, that isn't what we want. We want people who can diagnose technical issues and handle "actual stuff". When it's 2am and that one customer's critical domain has gone dark we want somebody there who can figure out what's wrong and what needs to be done to fix it. Having some minimum wage drone filing a ticket for the day crew would probably be more antagonizing than nobody being on duty at all.
said by rednekcowboy:

As a Canadian company, your primary responsibility is to Canada. Providing employment to Canadian citizens is not "sucking money" out of other locales in which you have clientele, it is supporting the country that your company calls home and it's economy. Whether it's 1, 2 or 10 jobs that you give to someone in another country, that is still 1, 2 or 10 jobs that are now gone from Canadians that are qualified enough and have the necessary skills and aptitude to fill. It matters not if you are hiring another 2 or 3 here on top of that, it just means that instead of hiring 5 here, you hired 3 here and 2 over-seas. It's still outsourcing no matter what kind of spin you put on it.

We'll have to disagree there. Our primary responsibility is to do what's right by our customers. Like I said earlier, given the call volumes and overall economics of the situation, we made the call that we'd go this way or there just wouldn't be overnight support or overnight on-duty sysops (at least not at this time).

So it was a case of either creating a few jobs overseas or none at all.

bbbc
join:2001-10-02
NorthAmerica

bbbc to dillyhammer

Member

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said by easydns :

My email address is markjr [at] easydns [dot] youknowhat and my office phone number is 1-416-535-8672 ext 225

It's nice when a businessperson take ownership over problems. I've had problems with a major Canadian VoIP company (VoIP.ms) and their owner wouldn't even contact me back. At least easyDNS answers the phone, kudos.

jtma
@comcast.net

1 recommendation

jtma to easydns

Anon

to easydns
Have been an easyDNS customer for years, always had excellent support, and still do. Moreover, their systems and configuration interfaces are full-featured and reliable (seldom need support). I am no fan of offshoring, but hey, it’s the real world and business is business. I am not too concerned about easyDNS doing a little of this, as long as they put customer service first.

I discovered one of their Indian support people recently, when I had a question at 11:30 pm at night. I got an accurate support response within 10 minutes. That's good support. Keep up the good work, and thanks Mark for discussing the how's and why's here.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

1 recommendation

Guspaz to dillyhammer

MVM

to dillyhammer
While I'm not an easyDNS customer (my domains are at godaddy because they're cheap, they're who I registered with many years ago, and I never have to interact with them because I use Linode's name servers and management interface), I've never heard anything but good things about them. So I was a bit confused when this thread popped up and I saw a bunch of people talking about migrating away from them. Glad to have the confusion cleared up.