Ugh… great… The NameCheap free name servers/DNS servers (also called FreeDNS servers) are down due to a DDOS attack. Status of the issue can be tracked at http://status.namecheap.com.
Now, this is not the first time I’ve had to deal with it. MyDomain name servers were down earlier this year (link). Since this is not the first time dealing with this, immediately added backup name servers so that I am using both MyDomain and NameCheap servers, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant. Especially feeling stupid for not having had backup DNS servers set after the last outage.
The upsetting thing is that one of my domain names is actually registered with NameCheap and that one seems to be resolving just fine. I wonder if I am being unreasonable in expecting their free offering to have the same reliability as their paid offering given the nature of the product.
Update: Beracah suggested that www.dnsmadeeasy.com guarantees 100% uptime. Switching there… he also says it improves access time.
Nikita's Spot 
Beracah suggested that http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com guarantees 100% uptime. Switching there… he also says it improves access time.
Pingback: Progress Report: We are stable… | Journal of Visualized Experiments Development Blog
Even if they are offering it for free I don’t think that’s a reason for them to be down THIS much, I think this is the 3rd time this year I’ve had a serious outage, other times it’s just been slow to resolve now and again.
I remember them promising that they bought new servers etc. and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
Not taking the chance…..
Switching my domains out this weekend, just need to find a decent place to.
… and this time contrary to one their sales assistants advise, I will get backup dns’s as well.
I’d just suggest to use http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com. I haven’t had any problems with them since we switched.