DynDNS closing down free accounts, alternatives?

[Aergan]

Received this yesterday:

 

To our Dyn free hostname users:

For the last 15 years, all of us at Dyn have taken pride in offering you and millions of others a free version of our Dynamic DNS Pro product. What was originally a product built for a small group of users has blossomed into an exciting technology used around the world.

That is why with mixed emotions we are notifying you that in 30 days, we will be ending our free hostname program. This change in the business will allow us to invest in our customer support teams, Internet infrastructure, and platform security so that we can continue to strive to deliver an exceptional customer experience for our paying customers.

We would like to invite you to upgrade to VIP status for a 25% discounted rate, good for any package of Remote Access (formerly DynDNS Pro). By doing so, you'll have access to customer support, additional hostnames, and more.

Here's how you get this done in two easy steps:

- Login to account.dyn.com.
- Click here to add Remote Access to your cart at the 25% off VIP rate. The discount will be applied upon checkout.

We thank you for your usage of Dyn through the years, and hope to continue to support you through Dyn Remote Access or other products for years to come. Please visit our FAQ page or this blog post for any additional information.

 

After their recent "login every 30 days or lose your hostname" stunt it's not really much of a surprise.

 

Annoyingly, my Netgear router only supports DynDNS.

 

Any recommendations for free alternatives?

[Stokkolm]

I use noip.com. It works well.

[Haggis Veteran]

Received this yesterday:

 

After their recent "login every 30 days or lose your hostname" stunt it's not really much of a surprise.

 

Annoyingly, my Netgear router only supports DynDNS.

 

Any recommendations for free alternatives?

 

 

in the same boat as you, my router only uses dyndns

[SledgeNZ]

I've changed to no-ip which works as expected.

For those of you stuck with routers that only support DynDNS noip have a desktop client that will update for you (Like we did back in the day before this was baked into our routers).

[Raa]

Yep, second no-ip. I've used them for years no issues at all.

[Haggis Veteran]

The problem i had with no-ip is that my ip does change but can be more than 30 days, if you dont update at least every 30 days they remove your hostname

 

pointless

[HawkMan]

regarding built into the router. how often do you get a new IP anyways. over here you literally need to fake a new modem MAC to get a new IP. 

[Aergan]

regarding built into the router. how often do you get a new IP anyways. over here you literally need to fake a new modem MAC to get a new IP. 

 

Mine can change every night as BT are doing quite a bit of work at the local exchange lately.

 

 

I've reactivated my no-ip account and will give that a go.

[primexx]

I use https://freedns.afraid.org/

[Top Qat]

Ah yes, I closed my account with DynDNS and went with https://www.changeip.com/

[gohpep]

noip

[Krome]

http://www.changeip.com/services/free-dynamic-dns/

[Praetor]

I've been using No-IP for years, great service.

[Aergan]

I checked over at Netgear's support forums. Some newer models have no-ip.com as an additional provider but users of R4500 (which is still supported) or older have got the shaft by the look of it.

 

http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=90715

[sc302 Veteran]

I've changed to no-ip which works as expected.

For those of you stuck with routers that only support DynDNS noip have a desktop client that will update for you (Like we did back in the day before this was baked into our routers).

this was baked into the first linksys routers in the early 2000's, during the time where there were more wired routers than there were wireless and when dial up was still the norm.  this is when I first knew about dyndns or what it was.

[HawkMan]

I wish the DDNS support in the official firmware on the Asus black knight routers wheren't so useless though, since I'm behind a modem that doesn't support being set as a pure modem I have to double NAT with the router as DMZ, which works just as well for everything else. but Asus refuses to check external IP and only uses it's own IP and if it's a local network IP it refuses to activate the DDNS support.   and all the third party firmwares use a different driver for the WiFi and even with Tomato and whatever optimal setting you set the transmit power to, it gets significantly lower coverage than the original firmware.

 

But since my IP never changes anyway, I use a sub domain record on my own domain redirected to my ip. 

[scumdogmillionaire]

 

After their recent "login every 30 days or lose your hostname" stunt it's not really much of a surprise.

 

 

Is that why my hostnames keep disappearing? I figured it was because I am double NAT'd with my home security router or that I didn't access the hostname often. Looks like I need to find another solution, too. Though 25.00 isn't crazy, I just don't use it all the time like I used to.

[xendrome]

Is that why my hostnames keep disappearing? I figured it was because I am double NAT'd with my home security router or that I didn't access the hostname often. Looks like I need to find another solution, too. Though 25.00 isn't crazy, I just don't use it all the time like I used to.

 

I'm pretty sure hey send you an e-mail every 30 days with a link you have to click to keep it active. Or am I thinking of something else?

[scumdogmillionaire]

I'm pretty sure hey send you an e-mail every 30 days with a link you have to click to keep it active. Or am I thinking of something else?

 

no that sounds right from a long time ago... but that was if it was nearing expiration.  the router used to keep it alive by sending the update even if the ip hadn't changed.

[Aergan]

I'm pretty sure hey send you an e-mail every 30 days with a link you have to click to keep it active. Or am I thinking of something else?

 

That was DynDNS, heh

[rr_dRock]

That was DynDNS, heh

 

no that sounds right from a long time ago... but that was if it was nearing expiration.  the router used to keep it alive by sending the update even if the ip hadn't changed.

 

 

No-IP regularly sends me emails regarding my hostnames with them.

 

You just click the link and BAM, your hostname is fine.

 

 

 

I use DD-WRT on my Linksys e3200 and it works great for updating. But they must have made a change to their update server, because I have to list it manually in the DDNS settings, instead of using the default no-ip config

[sagum]

Buy your own domain name, (or get one free at http://www.registry.cu.cc/ for whatever.cu.cc) and use http://dns.he.net for free DNS hosting. Not only will you be able to do dynamic DNS but you'll be able to do IPv6 too, along with anything else you want with raw access to the zone record.

Most people use the he.net's free DNS with their IPv6 Tunnel service, but you don't have to. Indeed, I was using gogo6's tunnel, with he.net's DNS service for a delegated reverse domain name on my IPv6, using the domain I purchased from 1and1.

 

luckily my router lets me use a custom http dyn-DNS service and he.net's works fine with it.

 

[Aergan]

Namecheap recently started issuing their first non-java or VB5 based update tool. Unfortunately, it appears to be written in .net 2.

[Aergan]

Right, I've given no-ip a fair go but it's not really met my requirements. Often their Windows based client has failed to update my external IP changes, it seems to only do it reliably on start up rather than running as a system service.

This morning I received an email with the "Free Dynamic DNS hosts must be confirmed every 30 days by logging into your No-IP account and clicking update" nonsense (despite it actually showing my current external IP).

 

I've given up and set up a Ubuntu 14.04 server x64 VM on my hyper-v host, running ddclient configured for my domain on namecheap's DNS - all working reliably now.