Thanks To Namecheap For Sponsoring Techdirt's Switch To SSL

from the for-a-secure-internet dept

Post sponsored by

As some of you know, Techdirt recently completed the process of protecting all Techdirt traffic with full SSL encryption — something we believe every internet company should do. Part of this process involved seeking a sponsor to help us offset the money and time spent getting everything switched over, and today we're happy to announce that Namecheap has stepped up to that role.

We're very happy to work with Namecheap, as the company has established itself as a defender of user rights and an open and secure internet, sharing many of the same values that we espouse here at Techdirt. They were among the first domain registrars to speak up against SOPA, they contributed heavily to the matching funds in our Beacon campaign to raise money for net neutrality reporting, and they do frequent fundraising for groups like the EFF and Fight For The Future.

As part of our sponsorship deal, you'll notice a message from Namecheap at the top of Techdirt, and see a couple more posts highlighting work the company has done and the services it offers — including SSLs.com, Namecheap's SSL certificate shop. We're grateful to Namecheap for its support, which helps our small team keep turning out quality content while juggling important technical upgrades like this one. We hope our readers will take a moment to support Namecheap in return, and check out its services for your needs when it comes to domain names, hosting and security certificates.

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Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: sponsorship, ssl, techdirt
Companies: namecheap


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  • icon
    Whitney McNamara (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 2:58pm

    I read this post, then actually went and checked the HTTP headers returned by Techdirt.com to see what the message from NameCheap was. Spent a full minute reviewing them before I figured out what you actually meant.

    I'm actually kind of disappointed that Techdirt isn't returning secret messages in its HTTP headers.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Leigh Beadon (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 3:18pm

      Re:

      That is a neat idea -- but for now I've adjusted the wording in the post to avoid any confusion :)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Nov 2014 @ 3:08pm

    Good timing! I've been looking for some basic web hosting for a year long project and I'm now going with namecheap.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 3:37pm

    Nice work, and slick business move to both of your companies on the partnership.

    Oddly enough, I don't recall the past posts about Namecheap, so I'm glad the history and value set were mentioned as well. I never would have been drawn to them by the branding. (Trying to be honest, not rude or overly critical, but it sounds that way no matter how I word it.)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Nov 2014 @ 3:39pm

    Inb4 'Mike Masnick is a Namecheap shill'

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Nov 2014 @ 4:02pm

    As long as you differentiate advertisements for Namecheap from articles That aren't filling a quota for an ulterior motive.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Nov 2014 @ 4:19pm

    Is this... new?

    I've been using TLS to read Techdirt for over an year. My browser shows it's currently using a Cloudflare certificate. So what's really changed?

    (I like Namecheap, we migrated everything from g*d***y to Namecheap back in the SOPA protest days. Namecheap's certificate administration interface is WAY better than g*d***y's.)

    Oh, and get with the times: SSL is dead since POODLE, it's all TLS now.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Michael Costanza (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 5:07pm

      Re: Is this... new?

      I've been using TLS to read Techdirt for over an year. My browser shows it's currently using a Cloudflare certificate. So what's really changed?

      While we've "supported" HTTPS/SSL/TLS for a while now, it's only since June that we've defaulted to it and made sure all Techdirt resources are served over a secure connection. But the news here is Namecheap coming on board as a sponsor of that move.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    NoahVail (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 5:06pm

    I'm here to shill for Namecheap

    Years ago, I registered domains with Namecheap based on recommendations from DSLR members. My experience couldn't have been better.

    Awesomeness #1 is their Nameservers update immediately. It's usually seconds between me updating A records and DNS servers all over getting the update. Which leads me to . . .

    Awesomeness #2 Namecheap has been accepting Dynamic Name updates from my pfSense boxes for years. That completely untethers me from any of the usual Dyn providers (that can be kind of clunky to use).

    The only not-great experience tied to Namecheap wasn't even their fault but they fixed the problem anyway.
    Shortly after I had made a purchase at Namecheap, the purchase guarantee provider used by my bank canceled the credit cards I used because Namecheap was an "Internet company", therefore must have been a target for fraudulent purchases - ala NewEgg.

    I sent Namecheap a headsup about the boneheads my bank used.
    Next month, Namecheap followed up that after 30 days of dialog w/ my bank, etc. - they got policy changed to make sure I wouldn't be inconvenienced again.

    I can't name another company I use for anything that would go that far out of their way on my behalf.

    Why people still use a craphole like GoDaddy when in-every-way-superior Namecheap is available just baffles me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Pat Beirne, 24 Nov 2014 @ 5:52pm

      Re: I'm here to shill for Namecheap

      I totally agree with Noah's comments. I've used NameCheap for about 6 years, and every interaction has been positive, quick and accurate. I highly recommend them.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ysth (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 5:48pm

    while I truly appreciate namecheap sponsoring techdirt...

    they have some unfinished business to take care of.

    We are constantly working to implement DNSSEC feature, something that apparently has been the case (with no ETA) for many years now.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Nov 2014 @ 5:54pm

    I've been using namecheap for SSL certificates going on three years now.

    Originaly was cheapssls.com but they recently re-branded to ssls.com.
    I have nothing bad to say about them, the one time I needed support they were very responsive.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    davebarnes (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 6:26pm

    I really don't care

    SSL for a magazine/blog!
    Really not important to me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2014 @ 11:55am

      Re: I really don't care

      You should care.

      SSL will help to prevent Man In The Middle attacks such as injecting or altering content, adding malicious drive by exploits, etc.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 28 Nov 2014 @ 11:46pm

      Re: I really don't care

      *TLS

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    MikeVx (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 8:43pm

    At long last!

    I've been crabbing for a decade or so that encrypted traffic should be the only option, it's nice to see the net finally starting to get to where it should have been long ago.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Atkray (profile), 24 Nov 2014 @ 9:38pm

    Figures.....

    I just renewed 2 domains with them at the beginning of November. :/

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2014 @ 5:58am

    Being an Anonymous Coward I may have to rethink things and register here, and drop my proxy or VPN use while visiting this site. Like one respondent above, if the ssl site uses godaddy I am out of there.
    Good to see you provide a place to wipe my feet before entering your fine establishment, instead of leaving my galoshes and shoes at the door. It surprises me that more tech sites are not keeping up in this regard.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2014 @ 7:12am

    Questionable agreement

    Namecheap's agreement says:
    THREATENED LEGAL ACTION(S). If we are sued or threatened with a lawsuit, an administrative proceeding or any other legal or administrative proceeding in connection with Service(s) provided to you, we may turn to you to indemnify us and to hold us harmless from the claims and expenses (including attorney's fees and court costs). Under such circumstances, you agree that you will, upon demand, obtain a performance bond with a reputable bonding company or, if you are unable to obtain a performance bond, that you will deposit money with us to pay for our reasonably anticipated expenses in relation to the matter for the coming year.
    This doesn't seem like something a "defender of user rights" would ask. There's not even a requirement that the lawsuit be based on anything the user actually did. Even if we assume "Service(s) provided to you" means the lawsuit must be related to a specific user (which is far from clear), they could demand money from the user to defend against a completely unjustified lawsuit. And the user doesn't get this money back if the court (or whoever runs the "administrative proceeding") concludes they did nothing wrong.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Leigh Beadon (profile), 25 Nov 2014 @ 11:44am

      Re: Questionable agreement

      That's actually quite flexible. Compare it to the total indemnity clause in most registrars' terms.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2014 @ 1:13pm

        Re: Re: Questionable agreement

        That's actually quite flexible. Compare it to the total indemnity clause in most registrars' terms.
        Can you be more specific? I'm not surprised that there are lots of bad agreements, but I don't see what's "flexible" about this or how it's not "total" (because it says "reasonably" anticipated?). The Free Software Foundation, by comparison, has an imdemnity clause for people who assign copyrights to them, but it specifically says frivolous lawsuits don't trigger it.

        I think they could do better, anyway, if they really want to be seen as defending rights (there is an entire industry build around providing indemnity coverage to people...); even without such a clause, I'm sure they could sue users to recover amounts they're actually at fault for. Just because all companies are awful doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    JustMe (profile), 25 Nov 2014 @ 9:13am

    Thanks Namecheap!

    EOM

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dan, 25 Nov 2014 @ 1:56pm

    Namecheap is a great company. I transferred all of my domains (including our corporate one) from GoDaddy to Namecheap more than two years ago. They are cheaper, have better service, and easier to work with. Plus the customer service is topnotch.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Chris Rhodes (profile), 25 Nov 2014 @ 3:16pm

    Something else to note: they also accept Bitcoin!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Dana Bostick (profile), 25 Nov 2014 @ 6:42pm

    NameCheap

    I swithched all 14 of my domains to NameCheap (from GoDaddy) because GD was supporting SOPA and then tried to back peddle. NameCheap seemed to support Internet freedom and rights of consumers so they were an obvious choice when I went looking for a new Domain Reg.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2014 @ 2:25am

    All very nice, but...

    ...it would be better if you'd chosen a partner that doesn't support spammers. (Citation: read the archives of news.admin.net-abuse.email...although after the first several thousand articles, it probably won't be necessary to read the rest in order to get the idea.) There are much better choices available.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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