Legitimate WHOIS search sites for expired domains

[Rantwire]

I am paranoid by nature, which I would imagine is vital in domain name registration.

To that end, I am even careful of my whois searches, including keeping an eye on a certain domain.

I can understand domainers like GoDaddy, NameJet, and the like who translate searches for a certain domain name as interest which can drive them to keep the name for themselves.

But in most cases, people do Whois searches, and I've come to the realization that such companies would be FIRST IN LINE to determine such statuses of domain names.

Cutting to the chase, what is the best WHOIS domain to check up on expiring domains? By "best" I mean the company who is least likely to be monitoring such searches for their own personal gain. And what are WHOIS sites to avoid like the plague?

 

[nielsencl]

As far as I know DomainTools.com is the best to use for checking if you are worried about people watching what you look for.

Network Solutions is the only one that I know of that used to "lock" a domain after you searched for it so that you would have to register it with them or wait about 5 days until they "released" it again...