In my attempt to recover from the EveryDNS disaster, I have accidentally found another free domain name service provider. It is dns.widge.
It is marketed as Real-time managed DNS services, with web-based creation and management of your DNS records. It has real-time updates, both primary and secondary DNS services, support for wildcards and round-robin, as well as syntax checker. The interface of the website looks very clean and well designed, so I thought I might just give it a try…
The sign up process is very straightforward. However, it does require a lot of private information to sign up. Besides a working email address, it also needs your address, phone number, and the company you work for. However, the new account is approved right away, instead of going through email verification, etc. So very quickly I landed in their Manage DNS page.
The interface for managing your domains is also quite easy to use. On the first page you have your list of existing domains, plus a text field to let you create a new primary or secondary domain. In the individual domain management page, it has some fields to let you modify SOA values, and a list of “key”, “type” and “value” fields for the actual DNS entries. The entry type is quite limited – you can only add A, CNAME, MX and NS entries. However, it lets you modify several of them at once, which is quite useful for web applications because of the longer latency. After I added some records, I actually tested whether they are resolvable. And yes, dns.widge does live out what it claims about the real time updates – all my new records get resolved immediately.
It provides 2 NS so it can host a complete domain. However, these two NS might actually be the same box, or at least they are on the same network. This kind of configuration probably won’t help if the ISP gets stuffed.
Overall, dns.widge provides a nice and easy to use interface for managing domains on-line, and its real-time update is really nice. However, it might not be suitable if you are seeking to more complicated DNS entry types (AAAA, for example).
Updated on 1 May 2003: Just got an email from the widge team:
The widge team has worked hard on dns.widge.net and are honored to bring free DNS services to all. We have learned a lot in the process and appreciated all the support and feedback we have received in return.
However, in order to maintain a continually excelling level of service, we must charge yearly fees for most of our services. We will still provide free DNS for third level domains on gigan.to, outstando.com, widge.to and widge.org.
It is a sad news for those who seek good free DNS providers. Now it charges USD$7.95 per zone per year, if you host less than 10 zones. It is in fact quite expensive when you have other free alternatives out there.
All the best to the guys at widge.
Updated on 2 May 2004: One year after I last have updated this entry, I did not expect to return to have more say. From the comments, it seems that widge.net is not contactable at all – all 4 DNS servers are out of touch. Feel free to comment on this page.
As for your last comment, “However, it might not be suitable if you are seeking to more complicated DNS entry types(AAAA,for example)” dns.widge now supports AAAA records as well. I’ve been with them a while now, and they do show to be very dependable. They’re expanding still as well, developing greatly into one of the most respectable free DNS hosting services on the Internet today.
As for their support, it’s great! I haven’t found any support that’s as quick and effective as dns.widge’s. Support is one of those things that’s going to make this service like no other.
Thanks Kris. As you see, I wrote that blog entry back in Feb, and the DNS record types were limited back then. However, it is great if they provide more support and flexibility now. Thanks for the info.
What happened to Widge.net? It appears they have just fallen off the face of the earth today.
What’s the deal with Widge.net? They seem to have dropped off the face of the earth for the moment. Do you have any insight?
Regarding http://www.widge.net – I just called the technical contact phone number for Widge in Portland, Oregon and received a ‘This number is not in service’. Sorry folks, this does not look good.
– Richard H. Lambert
– Blue Edge Technology Solutions Inc.
This is a big desaster, we have hundreds of DNS zones running on widge servers. Domains started to disappear this morning here in Europe. Does anyone now what to do?
Louis Brauer
Switzerland Tourism
Hi all,
please do yo have some new information why it doesnt work?
thanks a lot
tomas
ertra@volny.cz
Hi all,
I have been doing some follow-up to the Widge disaster. It appears that S-Cubed Consulting Services, the ‘parent company for Widge, has a Romanian domain extension for their home page. The address in Portland Oregon may be a fake – I am going to call a ‘neighbour’ first thing in the morning (9:00 PST). I am hoping this is not just some fancy scheme to harvest credit card numbers…. I am a little nervous about having handed ours out.
– Richard H. Lambert
– Blue Edge Technology Solutions Inc.
Hi,
I am from Czech republic, i can call them,
can you give me a number or their url?
thanks
tomas
Tomas,
For what it is worth – here is a
s3.ro/contact.html
Good luck!
Does anyone have further word?
– Richard H. Lambert
– Blue Edge Technology Solutions Inc.
Hi all,
Any comment that looks suspiciously as spam will be deleted, and that includes those that promote and link to other DNS providers. I believe if you have enough zones to use a commercial DNS provider, you should be able to do enough research elsewhere to find the right provider for you.
Scotty,
You know, it was your suggestion for me to use Widge.Net anyway. (It may not be your suggestion but it is on your site that I saw it.)
I would appreciate it if the users of your forums have found other quality providers to use since many of my domains are DOWN now because of this site.
So please stop removing the suggestions.
Tedd,
Did I suggest you to use widge.net? Not at all – unless you are reading this more than one year ago. I wrote this entry 14 months ago seeking a “free” DNS provider and widge.net came in with their free offers back then, but it has been pulled more than a year ago. I would not suggested anyone to use widge.net. If you really want my suggestions, please do try to read the article, as I did provide a link to a list of free DNS providers, even though it might be a bit out dated. I am using two of them to host several domains I’ve got.
Secondly, it is not a forum, and please distinguish between a blog and a forum. I wrote a short article about widge.net over one year ago, left the comment open, and 14 months later people come and ask why widge is not working for them. I careless about widge, as I don’t use them. However, I don’t want my blog to become a market place.
Cheers,
Well, I have to say, I’ve never been censored on a blog before for making a recommendation in response to someone else’s request, in fact as technology journalist it’s kind of my living.
I understand your concern about your blog becoming a “marketplace”, but if you don’t want people to discuss the topics you post, just don’t allow comments.
The tragedy here is that you are missing an opportunity to foster discussion about an interesting topic and increase the readership of your blog.
All the new posts to this thread are due to the high ranking this page got from Google searches for “widge.net”, which happened precisely because Widge went down.
If you don’t want to help other former Widge users that’s your right, but don’t expect people to return and read new blog entries either if they can’t actually get recommendations or are going to be censored for putting a link to a company that actually charges for reliable service (God forbid!).
Also, if you think that you need a huge number of zones to look for a commercial provider, you’re wrong. One zone can mean everything in the world to a particular user.
You also could have just removed the url to the site and left the rest of the post. In the end you’ll end up in your playground by yourself if you are rude to your contributors.
The chance to actually make this blog (which is a forum for all practical purposes) really popular and it is just being waisted.
Not even sure why comments are allowed.
Scott,
At the moment, your BLOG is shelter from a thunderstorm; a convenient place to huddle until the weather clears. You can be gracious, and let people help others out, or be authoritarian – it is, after all, your BLOG.
Right now this community is in your ‘home’, trying to help each other out….if one of the people seeking shelter knows a good place to buy raincoats – then I am not offended by their handing me a business card. (I too would draw the line at a big, blatant commercial for products – but I saw nothing like that).
In any event, my colleague and I have been scrounging information, and Matt has found that one of the key contacts for Widge has his own personal web site down too. Anything else we have to offer is pure conjecture.
– Richard H. Lambert
– Blue Edge Technology Solutions Inc.
P.S. – BTW Scott, thanks for the use of your shelter.
And now back to the story… ;p
Entertaining, but while I am sitting here after hours of re-creating DNS entries on a new DNS server, I have one thought. Death to WIDGE!
I don’t think that just death is enough they should suffer, a slow and painfull death!!!
Hi. I am fine to provide this place for any news regarding widge.net, but please, setting up a blog site on the Internet does not necessary mean that I would like it to become popular, as some of you have assumed. As of “suggestions”, it can be difficult for me to distinguish a genuine unbiased suggestion to someone coming in trying to market their own product. So I would rather set a policy that no URL to products should be posted.
As of “widge”, yes I would imagine your pain, especially those who have hosted many domains on it. It is pathetic that they don’t even post any information regarding the outage.
Widge is back up!!!
To all:
Here is the info from Widge personnel – for those who still care:
==============================================
There was a 36+ hour 1.2 Gbps DDoS attack on the widge network.
The DDoS mitigation technologies in place where crushed by an attack of this magnitude.
We are looking at ways to defend against such attacks in the future.
Please accept our apologies, for the effect this event had on your services.
–Steve
===========================================
– Richard H. Lambert
– Blue Edge Technology Solutions Inc.
Apparenlty widge.net is back down :(
It was up earlier this morning, and I also received the same email. I wonder if it really is a DDoS or just having management troubles.
I got the same email….
was happy to see them back up…
But they are down again
If this persists I will definately be looking for a new dns
server…
Im my bizness I cannot afford ANY down time..and his is getting rediculous
I come into work after a long holiday weekend to be met with DNS problems! 2 companies and my personal domain completely unreachable… I’m prepared to give widge the benefit of doubt since their service has been flawless for the past year but if their nameservers are not reachable by close of shop today I’ll have no choice but to move my records. Keep me updated.
I agree with ISF that widge service has been flawless up until now, but this situation is ridiculous. The fact that Widge are completely non-contactable highlights to me that the company is either dodgy, or very immature. We are in the process of bringing primary DNS in-house and using [edit: URL removed] for backup as we cannot afford this kind of cock-up again.
Back for the last 10 minutes, here’s hoping it stays that way.
Cheers.
Hey SIMON! You are advertising another service!!!! That is not allowed in this Blog!