For years we recommended Netfirms as our recommended domain registrar, but those days are over. Over the months (or years) we’ve noticed Netfirms is continuously “changing” their domain registration process in attempt to sell more hosting accounts among other upgrades which are totally unnecessary – it’s gotten as annoying as a Jehovah’s witness knocking on my door every other day.

Hidden Charges by Netfirms!

Today I tried to register a new domain for a client. Since we at Sonika have our own private dedicated server, we never need our clients to purchase their own web hosting – we host it, bill it, and manage it. All I needed was a $8 domain. Quickly, because I forgot to uncheck an item that they squeeze in forcefully, it became a $15 shopping cart with some option added. When I went “back” to modify my cart, the promo price for the 1st year had disappeared and the domain it self was up to $11 from $8, plus that added bullsh*t item (whatever it was).

A 5 minute registration turned into a 1 hour struggle for a refund from Netfirms

Few months ago I sent an email to Netfirms in order to explain that their new upsell attempts, while valiant, are actually causing a lot harm as the registration process is so painful, and the secretly added charges that show up upon checkout are as devious as that of Canadian cell phone carriers. I don’t think they took me seriously.

This email was provoked because I had sent one of my new clients to go register a new domain – and at some point, even though he didn’t intend to, he had added a whole year’s hosting package. Then we had to deal with calling them, getting a refund etc. It was a complete waste of an hour. This was one of many incidents. The way the registration at Netfirms works is that you have to diligently uncheck all the small checkmarks that pop on automatically in order to avoid extra charges. It’s sort of like having to tell your waiter, “No I do NOT want a bottle of wine added to my dinner by default and be charged for it, thank you!” How ridiculous is that? Normally it’s the other way around.

The New Kid in Town – Namecheap.com

We now recommend Namecheap over Netfirms for domain registration

Instead I decided to try www.namecheap.com – a company I’ve heard lots of recently – Wow, what a difference. There was no up-sell, and the WHOIS privacy option was free, unlike Netfirms, which charges close to $3 for it. The process was quick. No surprise charges, no back-and-forth to drop items that were added to my cart against my will. I didn’t have to look carefully to see what else came checked on by default in attempt to charge me more cash than I intend to spend. What i clicked was what I got. The only way to add more charges to my credit card was for me to proactively click on new services to be added on top. This was a great and simple experience. So instead of spending 20 minutes registering a domain, and another 20 minutes struggling for a refund for something I did not intend to keep in my cart with Netfirms, I took 5 minutes to get a new domain, and 10 minutes to write this post – and then 5 minutes will be spent on tweeting it out through @jeffkee, @sonikastudios & @brixwork to let everybody know of our position switch.

Better customer service wins; sleazy sales practices fail, and in this case, Netfirms failed us greatly. It’s too bad – they did have one of the easiest back-end platforms for managing your domain’s nameservers, contact info etc. Much better than webnames.ca – they get my vote for one of the worst domain admin panels ever, so I guess Netfirms isn’t at a total loss.. yet. I wonder if they will make a change in their registration process to make it less of a cash grub and more of an easy & friendly process to recover their reputation. It seems we’re not the only ones fed up with it.

That being said, we will now be clearing out our previous computers at a great price, so here they are:

iMac (Summer 2009)

We are selling the larger 24" model

Asking $1150 – includes iMac, full size keyboard w/ keypad, under warranty until summer 2012.

This unit has a 3 year extended warranty purchased through Futureshop, so it’s good until summer of 2012. The unit was very gently used – sitting on my desktop, basically, with no drinks or food near it whatsoever. The technical specs of this model can be found at this Apple webpage containing the model info. This model is the first 24″ model (MB418LL/A) with a Dual Core 2.66 gHz CPU. The RAM is stock at 4G, and the HDD is an astonishing 640Gbs! Great price for a unit in great condition & under warranty!

Macbook Pro (Winter 2007)

Macbook Pro from 2007 is still in good shape

Asking $600 – includes a near-new charger, original installation DVD, Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD.

This is a sturdy aluminum cased Macbook Pro from a while ago, with a RAM upgrade from the conventional 2G to 3G. I had a 2 year warranty, which covered the replacement of the optical drive, the HDD, the battery charger, and recently, under the recall of the nVidia video cards, had the video card replaced (only in February, so it’s fresh!). Also this year (2011) I put a brand new authentic Apple battery in.

Well maintained, with many new parts! The technical specs can be found at this Apple webpage with the model info. The model in question is the first model (MA895LL/A).