Buying a Domain with Namecheap

For a long time I've been wanting to buy my own domain and have a private server host it but I've been pretty skeptical about buying my own domain.

My exact thoughts were, "Why would I need a domain if github's pages are good enough?".

Also I don't like spending like $10 on something that I really don't need. Github pages got everything, SSL encrypted, short domain names and etc.

I changed my mind because having your own domain can educate you in a lot of ways, Like say...

• How to handle DNS Records
• Email Forwarding
• How to SSL Certificate with Let's Encrypt
• What is a A Record
• What is a AAA+ Record and etc...

Of course I know the theory behind everything and I've done the above way earlier in my life(Expect for Let's Encrypt because it didn't exist back then).

I Also wanted to have my own domain to host my custom software over the internet. To test out and do a lot of experimentation. Also subdomains are super awesome.

Who does not want a domain like https://api.antonyjr.in for all there experimental Rest APIs.

FYI I currently run about 3 of my own Rest APIs.

Why Namecheap

I'm not promoting Namecheap but I would definitely recommend it to a friend. When buying domain came into my thought, My first choice was GoDaddy, Who can register domains better than the internet giant GoDaddy. But the bigger the company the less you get the personal attention. So the top alternative for GoDaddy was Namecheap.

On Namecheap the same domain name was atleast $2 cheaper. I suppose it is worthy of it's name.

The Dilemma of .Me or .In

Choosing a good TLD(Top Level Domain) is of atmost importance. Because if I choose a TLD now I will be using it for the foreseeable future.

.me is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Montenegro(citing from wikipedia). .in is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for India. I was into using .me but ended up using .in instead to represent my area of residence. But .me was slightly cheaper than .in domain.

Anyways, I've seen a lot of open source developers use different TLDs, like .io, .de and etc. .io was extremely costly than .in so I ended up using .in.

Conclusion

So in the end I bought antonyjr.in domain for $6.38 which needs to be renewed on August 8th 2021.