Clouds in sky

It’s time to ditch GoDaddy.

My domain name registrar will soon be no more. GoDaddy has a terrible user interface, stuffed full of ads and flashing things. It’s counter-intuitive to navigate and just plain off-putting.

I decided to finally cut loose after I learned about the sexist habits of the world’s largest registrar. We’d had a shaky relationship for years. This was the final straw.

A friend drew my attention to the video of GoDaddy’s Superbowl ad. The ad featured a classically nerdy guy making out with an attractive woman, complete with an array of unpleasant slobbering sounds.

Disgusted, I switched off after just a few seconds. For starters, it’s a terrible ad. On top of that, it’s pretty damn sexist. I’m not going to pollute my site by posting the video here. If you’re still curious, it’s on YouTube.

Turns out, a lot of people have already written about all the reasons why using GoDaddy is a bad idea. Here’s one.

So I’m moving to a new registrar. Hover. They offer a ‘valet transfer’ service, designed for maximum convenience when bringing your domain into their fold. I haven’t completed the process yet, as I’ve only just put in the request. But hopefully it’ll go as smoothly as interactions so far have suggested.

Encouragingly, the Hover website is cleanly designed and functional. All the necessary information is clearly laid out. There’s a live chat option where an efficient customer service agent answered all my questions in rapid succession.

After switching my main domain name over to Hover, I plan to go a step further and ditch my hosting provider. I’m currently paying a few dollars a month for shared hosting with a Manchester-based provider. Service is friendly and adequate. But the hosting is fairly slow, and plus - why pay when you can get the same thing for free?

I’m planning to host my site on OpenShift, a free cloud-based hosting provider. It’s somewhat heavier on the techie side, but I’m confident I can figure things out with a bit of tinkering.

Hover + OpenShift + Jekyll = a new era of website management for me in 2016!