FYI Dyn (dyndns.org) Free Hostnames To Be Discontinued

[randy7376]

Many of you may be using Dyn's (dyndns.org) free dynamic DNS service. I received the following message, this morning, announcing that this service will be discontinued in the next thirty days.

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.

Just a heads-up, but it's probably a good time to consider purchasing your own domain name or move to another dynamic DNS service. I started using them back in 2003 and eventually acquired my own domain name about three years ago which Dyn still hosts. So, you still have that option.

 

[randy7376]

lgaetz

Yeah, it doesn't come as much of a surprise really. Much of the free stuff that abounded during the late 90's/early 2000's has come and gone. What does surprise me is this service lasted as long as it did. I'll have to check out that link you posted - may need it for someone/something in the future.

I know I've seen some threads here where their service was mentioned being used. This is why I went ahead and posted the above. Nothing like having your PBX stop working because a service you may pay little attention to ceases to function. It may be something to consider around the first part of May if we see a bunch of PIAF users suddenly unable to make or receive calls.

 

[mbellot]

I dumped them yesterday in favor of ChangeIP.com (for now at least, we'll see how it goes).

The periodic login at Dyn didn't bother me, I simply bookmarked the login page and clicked it once each day.

 

[wardmundy]

Looks like those with an existing (grandfathered) DynDNS Pro account are still OK according to this post.

 

[Brian Simmons]

I got bit a while back after not logging into my account frequently enough to maintain my "free" status. I think I ended up paying for their service which is fine since I use it quite a bit.....

 

[snarpatroid]

I use dnsdynamic.org which is a good free alternative.

 

[CoinTos]

I use freedns.afraid.org as well, now I pay for premium for 1 stealth flag because I don't want share my domain name with others but their free option is nice as well.

 

[Trimline2]

This shouldn't come as much of a surprise. I doubt they have many users left on the free tier since they've been nibbling away at their free offerings for years. When they introduced the delightful requirement that forced free users to periodically login to keep free accounts active, I abandoned them for http://freedns.afraid.org/

Question. When you change your host file to the new address at afraid.org, what command is necessary to pick up the new host name? I ask as I am moving to afraid.com to avoid the 25.00 annual fee for 1 host.

 

[GomezAddams]

I went ahead and paid. $18 for a year didn't seem too bad, relative to the time it would take me to move to one of the other free alternatives.

 

[evilmonkey]

I too moved to freedns.afraid.org. Do a search, one of the domains on offer is *.call.to. It's marked as private, but I've had mine for over a week it worked quite well, so the admin of that domain doesn't seem to be fussed about other people using it.

 

[Albert S]

I am also using afraid.org for over a year now and had zero issues.

They provide free DNS clients for windows, and wget and curl updates /cron jobs available for Linux and others as well. You can even your update current IP by clicking update through the website.

I too moved to freedns.afraid.org. Do a search, one of the domains on offer is *.call.to. It's marked as private, but I've had mine for over a week it worked quite well, so the admin of that domain doesn't seem to be fussed about other people using it.

 

[bobkoure]

BTW, if you're using Dyn for domain management, you can use any A record as a dynamic record.