About namebio.com

[tom365]

I discovered that Namebio has set up the strictest access restrictions, solely to encourage people to purchase their website subscriptions. For instance, Cloudflare verification is difficult to pass, and VPN access is not allowed. I hope they can unblock my VPN IP visit, but they refuse to do so. They insist that I must purchase a membership. Isn't that the case?

I paid for two years fees to namebio.com, but the reason I'm not paying now is because I feel like I'm paying to remove VPN restrictions. I have submitted a fixed IP, but there is no restriction lifted; it only requires purchasing a membership. Without this access restriction, I would actually be more willing to pay.

 

[tom365]

deleted

 

[tom365]

Please do not reply further as the current thread is closed.

 

[Eric Lyon]

Please do not reply further as the current thread is closed.

 

[johnn]

Michael has a wife and kids. He needs to feed them.
Why do you expect something for free? Do you work for free?
The only thing is free in your life is Virus.

 

[tom365]

Michael has a wife and kids. He needs to feed them.
Why do you expect something for free? Do you work for free?
The only thing is free in your life is Virus.

I have no intention of getting something for nothing. Due to access restrictions, I have also paid for a 2-year membership. I am just stating my opinion.

It's not easy for every domain name investor. Strict access restrictions, why do we have to find such grandiose reasons?

I have said that I have accessed over 1000 websites without encountering this issue

 

[tom365]

I don't want to continue discussing this post, closed.

 

[URL Stream]

Please do not reply further as the current thread is closed.

I don't want to continue discussing this post, closed.

You may need to contact a moderator for that.

And once you’re rewriting history, please also change the title of this thread—it’s misleading clickbait.

At most, you could write “Regarding NameBio,” but preferably something along the lines of "NameBio combats bots by blocking them", which is actually news in this space.

 

[Paul]

Why doesn't namepros have this problem?

We do. If you use a VPN, you will get flagged. If your connection goes through a hosting provider that also hosts VPNs, we will treat this the same as a VPN.

Sometimes you will see a captcha. You don’t notice because we invest a lot in determining whether someone is human without relying on any one signal, so we usually don’t need to show you a captcha.

If you’re logged in, we take that as a signal that you’re more likely to be human, just like Michael does, but you’ll still get a captcha if we see other risky signals.

NamePros has one big exception to its policy against VPN usage: we exempt any VPN usage deemed necessary to make connecting to the internet reasonable from within a country whose government would otherwise make it unreasonable. For example, Iranians can proxy through Turkey, and we’ll do our best to avoid impeding their access. The same is true of people in mainland China proxying through hosting providers in Hong Kong.

Managing these exceptions is challenging, and we continue to make mistakes. If you fall into that category, you will see captchas and errors on NamePros from time to time; I apologize in advance. If you do see such errors, it means we’re sustaining an active attack from the datacenter you’re using to connect to the internet, and there may not be much we can do in the short term. If the error persists, let us know and we’ll find a workaround.

 

[tom365]

We do. If you use a VPN, you will get flagged. If your connection goes through a hosting provider that also hosts VPNs, we will treat this the same as a VPN.

Sometimes you will see a captcha. You don’t notice because we invest a lot in determining whether someone is human without relying on any one signal, so we usually don’t need to show you a captcha.

If you’re logged in, we take that as a signal that you’re more likely to be human, just like Michael does, but you’ll still get a captcha if we see other risky signals.

NamePros has one big exception to its policy against VPN usage: we exempt any VPN usage deemed necessary to make connecting to the internet reasonable from within a country whose government would otherwise make it unreasonable. For example, Iranians can proxy through Turkey, and we’ll do our best to avoid impeding their access. The same is true of people in mainland China proxying through hosting providers in Hong Kong.

Managing these exceptions is challenging, and we continue to make mistakes. If you fall into that category, you will see captchas and errors on NamePros from time to time; I apologize in advance. If you do see such errors, it means we’re sustaining an active attack from the datacenter you’re using to connect to the internet, and there may not be much we can do in the short term. If the error persists, let us know and we’ll find a workaround.

Thank you for your reply. I use a VPN to access NamePros and everything runs smoothly without any hindrance. Even if there is occasional Cloudflare verification, I can quickly pass it. The user experience on NamePros is excellent, it doesn't require users to purchase a membership to bypass strict access restrictions.

Supplementary note: namepros.com and namebio.com can be accessed normally and legally in Chinese Mainland, and it is defined as a legitimate website in Chinese Mainland. However, if accessed using a Hong Kong VPN, the speed will be faster

 

[Paul]

Thank you for your reply. I use a VPN to access NamePros and everything runs smoothly without any hindrance. Even if there is occasional Cloudflare verification, I can quickly pass it. The user experience on NamePros is excellent, it doesn't require users to purchase a membership to bypass strict access restrictions.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad to hear that; it takes a lot of work to keep that component of our site running smoothly, and there's no perfect compromise. We definitely fall short in some cases, as @alcy can attest.

I've taken a look at Michael's approach; he's made different trade-offs than us, but he also has a different threat model: the sort of malicious activity that tends to come from datacenters--and that is difficult to differentiate from human activity--is a much bigger threat to his site than it is to NamePros.

Supplementary note: namepros.com and namebio.com can be accessed normally and legally in Chinese Mainland, and it is defined as a legitimate website in Chinese Mainland. However, if accessed using a Hong Kong VPN, the speed will be faster

Right, we're aware of this and consider it reason enough to allow proxying from the Mainland. We've had reports that NamePros is just too slow to use without going through Hong Kong. A while back, we looked into the viability of establishing a presence in Hong Kong or the Mainland to mitigate this, but it wasn't feasible given our resources.

This also explains the issue you're running into with NameBio. A lot of the traffic exiting Mainland China gets lumped together under the same few ASNs. NamePros, and presumably NameBio, rely on ASNs to categorize traffic. We can get more granular when an ASN handles traffic from multiple categories, but that gets a lot more difficult. Basically, China--and a few other countries, like Vietnam--make it quite difficult for all but the largest websites to make these distinctions.

My napkin math says that NamePros has directly invested about $300,000 USD over the past decade in developing solutions to this problem, not to mention the infrastructure and data costs. We've got a sizable Elasticsearch cluster, and, for a long time, that cluster's primary purpose was to help us better classify traffic. Until the advent of NamePros Landers, it was our largest infrastructure cost.

I don't doubt that Michael is doing his best. He's got some innovative solutions of his own, but they differ from our solutions in a few key ways, so different people are going to run into different issues on each site. @alcy is an example of someone who repeatedly draws the short straw on NamePros (sorry, @alcy! We love you!)

 

[Future Sensors]

sorry, @alcy! We love you!

Since your message was quite long, he might miss the final sentence on his legacy phone. I'm highlighting it here to ensure it's seen.

 

[alcy]

the current iteration of alcy contain at least 1 million cells from edgar poe:

"From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then -- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

 

[Simon SE]

This is what puts me off building products lately. The guy works tirelessly, probably single dev, every day posting and sharing info. Mostly for free. Paid plans are reasonable cost.

People just complain endlessly or have an entitled attitude. I feel sorry for the maker of Namebio.

 

[tom365]

This is what puts me off building products lately. The guy works tirelessly, probably single dev, every day posting and sharing info. Mostly for free. Paid plans are reasonable cost.

People just complain endlessly or have an entitled attitude. I feel sorry for the maker of Namebio.

Earn what you deserve, and don't restrict access too much on your website. Good websites will naturally attract people to pay. I paid for two years fees to namebio.com, but the reason I'm not paying now is because I feel like I'm paying to remove VPN restrictions. I have submitted a fixed IP, but there is no restriction lifted; it only requires purchasing a membership. Without this access restriction, I would actually be more willing to pay.

I submitted a request to unblock my fixed IP address used for VPN access. I have not attacked namebio.com, so why can't my IP access be unblocked? Instead, namebio.com only require me to pay for a membership.I don't like this kind of forced consumption.

So don't make it sound fancy, it's to prevent people from attacking your website

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I just am catching up on NamePros reading and this thread because of mention in weekly topics.

What I was going to post, has been said perfectly by @bmugford a bit earlier:

I have a paid membership, because the service is well worth it.

It's one of the rare domain services that I am actually willing to pay for.

However, even outside that NameBio still works fine with my VPN if I am not logged in.

I think the amount of free data that NameBio provides is commendable.

It's not like they are under any obligation to provide free access.

It is indeed commendable that NameBio provides any free access. It is unfortunate that they need to fight a weekly battle against those who would scrape their data and because of that, there may be certain inconveniences to free users.

Kudo to @Michael for his management of NameBio, and for his full, informative and reasonable responses in this discussion.

-Bob

 

[domainnews]

You admitted it, yet you actually shifted the blame to AI. Why isn't namepros like your website? Aren't you trying to get more people to purchase your membership. You are a hypocritical person. PayPal has banned your account and stopped cooperating with your company. Isn't it because of your hypocrisy and greed

You admitted: Setting strict access restrictions is one of the reasons for increasing company's revenue, as you can sell more memberships, which you can purchase, if you find it inconvenient to use, you can purchase a membership; if you can't stand it and don't want to purchase a membership, then don't use website. Why doesn't namepros have this problem? I've visited over 1000 websites and none of them have this issue.

PayPal has banned your account and stopped cooperating with your company.

Really?

It remind me of that when Sedo paid me via Paypal after my domain sold and I can got the whole money I sold while Sav.com paid me via PayPal and I was charged transaction fees.

Im wondering why ，PayPal treated 2 companies with different attitude?

 

[domainnews]

Earn what you deserve, and don't restrict access too much on your website. Good websites will naturally attract people to pay. I paid for two years fees to namebio.com, but the reason I'm not paying now is because I feel like I'm paying to remove VPN restrictions. I have submitted a fixed IP, but there is no restriction lifted; it only requires purchasing a membership. Without this access restriction, I would actually be more willing to pay.

I submitted a request to unblock my fixed IP address used for VPN access. I have not attacked namebio.com, so why can't my IP access be unblocked? Instead, namebio.com only require me to pay for a membership.I don't like this kind of forced consumption.

So don't make it sound fancy, it's to prevent people from attacking your website

This is actually very easy to resolve.

First of all, you are a paid customer.

Secondly, you gave them your IP address, so all they need to do is lift the restriction, which can completely prevent the problem. Clearly, if the issue cannot be resolved, the options are either a refund or a change of service. This is about respecting and valuing the customer. After all, no one wants to spend money and end up with an unsatisfactory experience, which is unacceptable.

What customers need is to have the problem solved, not a bunch of excuses. I really sympathize with you.

 

[Michael]

PayPal has banned your account and stopped cooperating with your company.

Really?

It remind me of that when Sedo paid me via Paypal after my domain sold and I can got the whole money I sold while Sav.com paid me via PayPal and I was charged transaction fees.

Im wondering why ，PayPal treated 2 companies with different attitude?

We were taking payments for our Featured Listings through PayPal, and we were including the domain name in the subject of the payment. Someone ordered a Featured Listing for a domain name they recently caught on the drops, and it was apparently on a blacklist because it was previously used for something sketchy.

PayPal, seeing the blacklisted domain in the subject of a payment, banned our account without question or investigation. We reached out to them, and with the help of the community bombarding them with mentions on X, got it resolved in less than two weeks. This was more than five years ago.

Our PayPal account is just fine, and we still use them for Featured Listing payments to this day. But we don't integrate with them for memberships because I still don't trust them. This was all covered on our blog at the time.

The OP, yet again, has no idea what he is talking about or is outright lying.

This is actually very easy to resolve.

First of all, you are a paid customer.

Secondly, you gave them your IP address, so all they need to do is lift the restriction, which can completely prevent the problem. Clearly, if the issue cannot be resolved, the options are either a refund or a change of service. This is about respecting and valuing the customer. After all, no one wants to spend money and end up with an unsatisfactory experience, which is unacceptable.

What customers need is to have the problem solved, not a bunch of excuses. I really sympathize with you.

So here's the story, since OP left most of it out intentionally. The OP signed up for an annual Domainer membership in 2024, immediately used his entire monthly quota, and then emailed me SEVEN times in 15 minutes complaining that he thought it was a daily quota and asking to be downgraded to Collector and get a refund of the difference (i.e. not pay for Domainer at all).

Since he had already used the quota, he was no longer eligible for a refund. But to be nice I offered that he still pay for a month of Domainer, I downgrade him to Collector as requested, and I refund him the difference.

We reached a different agreement where he would switch to Collector, I not refund him anything, and he agrees to stay on for a second year with the balance applied to future renewals. So he paid nothing for the exports he did while briefly on the Domainer tier.

He used the site fine for two years. But then when the credit ran low enough that it couldn't cover the next renewal, and he actually needed to pay something, the payment failed.

Just 17 minutes after the failed payment, he emailed me complaining that he can't access the site and asking to be whitelisted, or for a refund of the remaining credit from his two-year-old payment. 30 minutes later I gave him the refund as requested. Odd that he had no trouble accessing the site until the payment failed though, huh?

So spare him your sympathy. He's been a headache from day one, and I've done nothing but try to work with him and be helpful, short of whitelisting a massive hosting company and opening ourselves up to endless abuse. And then to thank me for the hours I spent helping him, he tries to start drama publicly and waste more of my time.

 

[Michael]

Also worth noting that OP says this in the original post:

I have submitted a fixed IP, but there is no restriction lifted

But he posted that just 6 minutes after emailing me his IP address, before I even had a chance to look into it much less reply. The guy is a piece of work.

 

[tom365]

deleted