Are there any good free domains out there? I used to use .tk when all they had was one small pop-up. Now they have a gateway with a countdown .I would prefer that I can set the DNS not just a redirect.

Also, I heard someone talk about free .info domains? Thanks ~John

No such thing as a free lunch

I am not talking about .net .com etc. I will settle for things like .co.nr but I was just wondering if there are any that anyone uses that works good.

It's much safer to register your own domains, trust me.

I've used several of those types of services:

With co.nr you can either have it forward to your real site address (with javascript, not se friendly) or 'cloak' the real address (with an iframe, which is also not really good for seo)

I use uni.cc which lets you use redirection, cloaking, their 1 page 'site builder', or DNS. (.com and .org system -- NOT bad for seo )

There are a couple more but they put ads on your site.

There is also afraid.org, which I think is DNS. (Never used it though)

Note: The uni.cc captcha is a little hard to read. There have been a few times when I had to wait awhile for a new captcha to come up. But that's the only problem I've had with them.

Edit: Non-johniman people: One sentance replies are usually not good replies.

www.afraid.org -

I still suggest you buy your own. It will pay off later with adsense or whatever way you use to earn money.

I don't get it, why would you miss out on branding for the lack of owning a quality .com?

They were giving out free .be a while back.

My main reason for asking is because many times I don't go anywhere with a project that I start and I don't want to pay for domains for every little project I start. If I was earning more I would but since most of my projects get scrapped I don't want to lose the money.

I do understand though the importance of a good domain and any project that I think or that is starting to do well I buy a domain for.

I used to have this domain for my myspace site http://myspacemagic.echoz.com . I immediately started getting good traffic from google and better adsense earnings with my .net .

Well, thanks for all your replies I will check out the sites you mentioned. ~John

Buying a domain name is like buying real estate. It sucks to buy something and end up scrapping it, but at least you can always return to it later.

Don't buy a crappy piece of land -- get a dot com or dot net now, and worry about the complete development later.

I agree there is no free lunch. But there has been a few places that do give free domains. I have recieved a few when they ran their free campaigns(moniker, 1and1 and a few others) But here is what dotster is running for $1. They will take out $14.95 than turn around a do a $13.95 refund. I recieved my refund in 3 days. Whereas if you use paypal it could take up to 3 - 4 weeks. Either way it's a $1 domain.

I also found a program over at ezrewards. You have to fill out surveys and what not. So be sure to have a useless email etc to have all the spam to go to. But I have recieved a few domains over there for free.

go with dnsexit.com it ll help you out of dynamic ip problem

I read somewhere that officelive.microsoft.com was offering free domains and hosting during their beta period, I tried it and it works.

You do need to enter your cc info but as far as I can tell it is only billed if you want to upgrade your account. I did a quick search on the forum and didn't find it posted anywhere else.. Maybe it will be useful for someone.

If it is already posted .. sorry..

spend the 6-7 bucks, its worth it.

Microsoft offer free domians and hosting: http://officelive.microsoft.com/WebHosting.aspx

But unfortunatly its not open to certain countries... such as the one I'm in

try proxy to anonymously surf this site... For example webwarper.net
or you can find another by searching on google with the key phrase: free web surfing proxy sites
Good luck!