I am not a professional. I have worked on web pages since the late 1990s, but I am neither a professional web designer nor a computer scientist. While I have dabbled in Python and NodeJS, I still do everything of my own in PHP and static HTML. All of my pages are not mission critical. They are largely things I just picked up and either carried on from some previous person or stuff that I want to put up on the web. As a result, my priorities for both hosting and registration have been price and ease-of-use. That said, I generally haven't wanted to either host with or register domains with companies that are total jerks.
Back in the day, I would register with Network Solutions...well, because that was the only registrar around. When GoDaddy and the others came around as new registrars became a thing, I moved there. I used GoDaddy for registration for a number of years. Then, as smaller, even more inexpensive registrars came around, I continued to move to one after another every few years as long as I didn't see really bad behavior on the part of the registrar or find any horrible reviews online.
Several years ago, I moved to Google Domains because their pricing was good and generally the service was OK. However, I started having second thoughts being once again with one of the "Big Boys" and also Google's behavior in general. Long ago they had abandoned the 1999ish "Don't be Evil" motto, and they had not only obviously abandoned that ethos but were also increasingly admitting it and no longer using the motto. Two years ago, in my effort to move away from Google Domains, I started searching for registrars that had a good reputation, realizing that it seems no one out there is an angel. At that time, I settled on Gandi, a registrar and host I had heard about but never used. Several people online were pleased with the fact that they were based in the EU, had good pricing, and had good customer service.
In February of 2023, Gandi was sold to a new private equity firm. Apparently it had been bought and sold several times throughout the years, but remained largely unchanged. At that time, I took a wait-and-see attitude. In March, Gandi announced that they were no longer including email hosting with their domains but were going to begin charging an extra fee. I don't use Gandi for email, so I thought I would just hold tight. In June, Gandi posted about the email price increase. At that time, they also sent out an email to customers that included new pricing for domain registrations, and it looked like pricing was going up considerably—depending on the TLD, it was going to go up 50-100%. At this point, it looked like it was worth moving.
At that time, I started asking around Mastodon to see if anyone had any suggestions. While I didn't see anyone respond to me directly, I did see others using the #Gandi and #registrar hashtags to express their dismay and to announce what registrar they were picking. I heard about Porkbun at that time, and all the chatter seemed to be positive on both pricing and service.
When I received my notification from Gandi that one of my domains was expiring in 60 days, I planned to move. I went to Porkbun.com and I at first typed my domain name in the search spot, it told me that it was already registered (duh), and it did not say "Do you own this? Would you like to transfer to us?" So then, I clicked on the link at the top for Transfer. I saw on that form that it needed what they refer to as an "Auth Code" on the the transfer page. Going over and signing into Gandi's domain administration page, I selected the domain I wanted to transfer. From there, there is a tab on the upper right labeled "Transfer out." Clicking on that tab, the page says "Transfer lock" and "Transfer lock is a protection mechanism. When the transfer lock is enabled, the domain can't be transferred." As soon as I slid the Transfer lock control over, Gandi issues a code that is good for two months. I cut and pasted this code from Gandi to Porkbun's transfer form.
After submitting the form, Porkbun prompted me to register for an account, providing the usual identifying information and payment information. Once I did that, and was charged for the transfer, I received an alert email from Gandi notifying me of the move. I didn't have to respond to that email, and if I didn't respond, the transfer would have happened in five days. There was a link that I didn't notice right at first that would speed this process up. So if you submit the correct code to the new registrar and do not confirm with Gandi, your registration will still go though, just five days later.
Back on the Porkbun site, I was now in the administrative page of their site. It complained that I didn't have any
At this time, I looked at the status of the transfer in the list of domains at Porkbun, and I saw that the transfer had been requested and that it may be accelerated by following any instructions from the original registrar. They even included a link to GoDaddy's instructions on transfering a domain out. This got me to look back at the email from Gandi and notice that I could approve it immediately.
I left everything for a few minutes, then came back. I could then see the domain on Porkbun's site and it was gone from Gandi. Success! Overall, it went rather smoothly, and if I did this regularly I think I could be fast at it (I'm not doing bulk here, just a handful now and then, obviously).