What is the best and cheapest way to buy your own domain? I do not want to relay on namecheap or godaddy. I understand and use VPS's but don't understand how to get the domain itself. Want no 3rd parties. Thank you for your help!

You could use a website like TLD-List to find cheap domains for a specific TLD. You would use the following syntax; https://tld-list.com/tld/YourWantedTLD -> https://tld-list.com/tld/com

https://njal.la/ seems to be a good option to register domains whilst keeping your privacy.

I was looking into this a few years ago but unfortunately domains are effectively only rentable so unless you have allot of money to register directly with ICANN your best just using a cheap domain host like name cheap.

Its rather annoying that we can't keep our domains forever but I guess it makes sense since A) Companies what a consistent income from subscriptions B) domains could be pointing to long dead servers/services C) Prevents domain squatting (People buying certain "rare" domains) and holding them forever.

Currently the only was you can kind of have a permanent domain is by using a service like tor but this has its own problems mainly speed and accessibility to regular users.

(September 19, 2022, 07:38 AM)bobbyjones Wrote: What is the best and cheapest way to buy your own domain? I do not want to relay on namecheap or godaddy. I understand and use VPS's but don't understand how to get the domain itself. Want no 3rd parties. Thank you for your help!

You never can buy a domain. They are only leased. Unless you become domain registrar you'd need rely on party like godaddy and namecheap.

cloudflare does a good job for me at the moment

(September 21, 2022, 04:10 AM)linbobo668899 Wrote:

(September 19, 2022, 07:38 AM)bobbyjones Wrote: What is the best and cheapest way to buy your own domain? I do not want to relay on namecheap or godaddy. I understand and use VPS's but don't understand how to get the domain itself. Want no 3rd parties. Thank you for your help!

You never can buy a domain. They are only leased. Unless you become domain registrar you'd need rely on party like godaddy and namecheap.

That's true, and it's never been cheap

thanks man