Hi James,

When I've cleared a few outstanding tasks I'm beginning an exercise to move my last few remaining domains (4) from UK2 to either NameCheap.com or 123-reg.co.uk (for my .co.uk) domains.

Recently an old domain that I registered for my mother-in-law to use for email (she wanted something a little different) that's no longer required was attempted to be renewed by UK2 even though I'd set it not to auto-renew. Fortunately my credit card with UK2 had expired and it didn't go through, and of course I have no intention of entering my new card details in there. I've had a few reminders from Nominet and I'm in two minds to write to them about UK2s "sharp practices". UK2 are nothing but trouble.

These are just awful business practices they're engaged in, and from what I've read since I made this post, UK2 and 1&1 and Fasthosts are all now owned by the same parent company. OMG.

I pity all the people and business who have registered domains or have hosting with any of these companies. If you do a search you'll find that the practices that 1&1 are now engaging in are passing non-existent "debts" to a third party firm who are then chasing people down and threatening them with CCJs. All in the name of making a fast buck.

Lousy.

What I've done is already moved some domains, and let others expire.

UK2 have made it a *little* easier to do transfers now than when I write this, and I think if I start the transfer process within the next 3 weeks I'm outside the 60-day period outside dowmina renewal when you're not allowed to move domains, so I've got to do this quickly.

The two best registrars that I now use exclusively are NameCheap.com (almost no adverts or upsells) for most domains, and 123-reg for .uk domains. And I use HostNine for my web hosting as they charge US prices but have some UK servers.

-Frank