All .ml domains are down due to registry transfer

Hosting Support
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Many of you are using free domains from Freenom with the .ml extension. However, most if not all sites using this domain extension are down right now.

What happened?

The contract between Freenom and the Malinese government that gave Freenom technical control over the domain extension and give out the domains for free, has expired on Monday July 17. The contract was not renewed, which means that the control of the .ml domain extension is returned back to the government of Mali.

What this means for existing domain holders is not known, neither Freenom nor the Malinese government has provided a clear statement as to what’s happening.

However, the current situation with the .ml domain looks very similar to what happened with the .ga domain extension of Gabon in early June. With the .ga migration, all paid domains were restored after a few days of downtime, but all free domains were gone permanently.

What does this mean for InfinityFree users?

All free .ml domains will have been removed as part of the migration by the current registry of .ml domains. This means that all free .ml domains, including those hosted by InfinityFree

If you are looking for a way to make your site public for free, we recommend using a free subdomain instead.

Other Freenom extensions

Both the .ga and .ml extensions were launched by Freenom in 2013, along with the .cf and .gq extensions. The first two domain extensions have been taken away from Freenom. The .cf and .gq domains are still managed by Freenom, but things are looking very uncertain as to whether they will stay this way. We strongly recommend planning ahead for the possible removal of the .cf and .gq extensions as well, for example by migrating to a different domain, or by purchasing your domain from Freenom.

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So what do you suggest?? I am not paying you guys for domains, but a few of my sites are .ml, why did you not let us know this was happening, so I could swap them over before it did?? I guess I will need to get three more domain names for them and just transfer the files??

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Like I wrote: use a free subdomain instead.

I know that. We don’t sell domains, so you aren’t paying us for domains even if you wanted to.

You may want to purchase your free domain with Freenom, or another registrar that offers the extension, so you will be able to keep if after the extension is taken away from Freenom, or risk losing the domain entirely.

To be clear, that’s not so much a recommendation as it is listing options. If you would rather not pay and move to a different domain, that’s fine too, and entirely up to you.

I could ask the same thing to you. And the question would make just as little sense.

Please understand very clearly that this is between Freenom and the government of Mali. InfinityFree, nor any of our partners, has any kind of influence on this decision, or any knowledge about Freenom domains other that what is already publicly available.

I wrote this article because there are many people here using .ml domains which stopped working, and they come here asking why their site doesn’t work. Instead of answering a dozen questions about this every day, I wrote this article with all the relevant information so the affected users could find it easily.

If you want to complain to someone about the lack of information, please complain to Freenom. They promised you a domain name which they are currently failing to deliver due to events they know were going to happen. They could have been more transparent about this, but chose not to be.

To be very clear, again, InfintiyFree has nothing to do with this. The hosting for your .ml domain is working exactly as it should. But if your domain name is taken down, your website will stop working, and there is nothing we as your hosting provider can do about it.

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Hello,

Thanks for the clarification, it is much appreciated. I will just try and register some more free domains (I’m not really a fan of subdomains) and transfer the files.

Freenom are what they are. I have tried to e-mail them several times and have never heard anything…Please feel free to inform me of any other free domain sites, as Freenom is the only one I have ever used.

Again, thanks for the clarification.

Paul

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Interesting link…

Could be the end of Freenom… The site looks very clunky and seems impossible to register a new domain there, so if anybody has any alternatives please drop them here…

Thanks…

Paul

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Please do note that it’s possible that the .cf and .gq extensions will be shut down too in the near future. The .tk extension seems good for now, but it’s blocked on our end. Add to that that Freenom itself seems to be a sinking ship too with generally appearing abandoned and being tied up in multiple legal disputes.

If you want to take your chances with different domains from them, please don’t let me stop you. But I would personally take my business to a provider with a better outlook.

This question has come up a lot with all the troubles surrounding Freenom, and the answer is that only two options still exist: eu.org and freedns.afraid.org.

But please be aware that both only provide subdomains, not custom domains, and both have some manual review step in place before you can obtain the domain and change the nameservers.

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I agree with you, Freenom is looking pretty finished… I have decided not to order another domain from them… There seems to be a concerted effort from the PTB to stop people owning their own domains for free right now, which is what it is… I would rather register a sub domain with you guys rather than someone else, which is what I have done and hopefully when the files have transferred to it the site will work… I might go over my usage limits while duplicating the sites but as soon as I know the new one is working I will delete the old one from your server as I have the files here…

Thanks,

Paul

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9 posts were split to a new topic: Moving Website Using FTP

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I wanted to mention something else:

First is the pp.ua extension, like eu.org. You can register it at Here (Ignore that “Buying”, it should be free).

Second is DynaDot . You can claim a free .link domain here. However I think that it is (maybe?) a temporary event so you might wanted to be quick.

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Are they going to ask for a credit card in sign-up process or no?

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No. You only need to verify your email to claim a free domain.

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Such a surprise guys, i realized this a couple of days after that.
It seems that all free freenom domains are in trouble.

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Here they say it’s until the end of August: Dynadot.com - Register free .LINK domain | NamePros

The details of the offer are very scarce. I expect it’s only a promo for the first year of registration and that you have to pay for the regular renewal afterwards, but I’m not sure. I’m also not sure if you get full DNS controls with these domains, or if you have to use Dynadot’s website builder.

It’s a nice promo, but I highly doubt it’s a good alternative to Freenom.

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Yes, but FreeNom are somehow the same.

I’m using cloudflare now, so yes

Screenshot attached:

image
image750Ă—1334 90.5 KB

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14 posts were merged into an existing topic: Moving Website Using FTP

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Moving Website Using FTP

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Because everything is all tied up here, I’m not going to bother trying to move and edit things.

But please, keep things on the topic of .ml and free domain alternatives. Any posts deviating from this will be flagged and removed, or moved to a new topic.

Thanks

EDIT: That works as well oxy!

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Perdon me ha pasado esto con mi dominio.ml como hago para cambiar este que ya no funciona por uno de pago?

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Hi there,
Please speak English as this is this forum’s language, or at least use google translate.
I’ve translated it for you:

You can always go and fetch a free subdomain, or use some alternatives like these:

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