The Empirical Manifesto

I've been using DynDNS for dynamic DNS resolution for something like 17 years because it was highly supported, and free.

Several years back I got a new modem and had to login to the site. I don't know if it was because they'd changed the site so much, or because they'd changed the names of their services - but I accidentally deleted ehowton.homeunix.com and when I tried to re-establish it seconds later it was already too late, DynDNS disallowed their "legacy" names.

Oh well. So instead I got one using their "dyndns.org" domain which worked great, as its supposed to, in the background, for another several years - until it didn't. So once again I log into the site - which has not only changed considerably again, but they renamed all their services again. I couldn't find ANYTHING.

So I called them.

`Dynamic Domain Name Service` is now called `Remote Access` and to top it all off, is no longer free. Turns out they shut off free service 4-months ago, which coincides with my service breaking. DynDNS was unapologetic.

But their gamble paid off. Even though I actively sought and found other free providers, the dropdown menu in my router has only a single entry. So if you're reading this, DynDNS, congratulations. I am now paying $25/annually for a free service.

For those techy-types out there, I did consider flashing my NETGEAR with firmware which supports alternate DDNS providers, but remembering the official update not playing nice with things like basic security, I may simply keep this one at current rev forever.