Auction: https://www.sav.com/auctions/details/7073489/hexbear.net
Not sure what will happen, but seems to be a Fediverselore event for sure
Update: post from hexbear admin on chapo.chat: https://chapo.chat/post/4468531
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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I'm not up to date with my Hexbear knowledge, is hexbear dead?
Hexbear (edit: ~~is very much alive~~) was very much alive until my cached DNS values dropped out, and now they're dead. Looks like they're fucked.
It looks to me like sav.com is some kind of domain name scammer. They trick people into registering their domains with them by offering low prices, and then some time later once you've come to depend on the domain, proceed to some kind of abusive process like this where they'll let totally separate people (allegedly-real separate people) "bid" on your domain, and force you to pay whatever exceeds the highest bid, if you want to keep control of it. I honestly don't know how it is allowed.
It looks to me like Hexbear got suckered into registering with them, displaying the same savvy critical thinking skills that serve them so well in so many other areas. I don't think the domain expires until a year from now? Am I misunderstanding, or is sav.com just getting the jump on extorting some money from Hexbear? I realize it would be funny to jump in and bid the price up, but be aware that (1) you are giving money to some genuinely godawful people, quite a bit worse than just a bunch of confused aggressive pro-left people, if you win (2) you won't even get your entertainment until a year from now, unless I am misunderstanding something.
Edit: If anyone's curious, Hostinger has extremely cheap domain registrations: https://www.hostinger.com/domain-name-search
They also have an endearingly janky AI assistant that likes to pop up the most hilariously wrong AI descriptions of whatever domain you are registering, for no reason at all. It goes with the rest of their endearingly janky hosting service. I honestly don't mind it, I like them.
Edit: Guys, I am sad to report that they fixed the AI assistant. It now (still for no reason) displays back to you a summary of what you want to use your domain for, but they've fixed the AI involved so that it no longer gives suggestions that are hilariously wrong. It's just accurate and boring. I wish I had saved some of the ones it showed me way back when they first introduced it, because they were wonderful.
HOSTINGER IS LITERALLY A SCAM WHAT, known scam within the community for doing exactly what you claim sav does insane af that you would suggest that, look around reddit or lowendtalk. Actually comedy to see that suggestion under you making those claims about sav.com lol.
What on earth are you talking about?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hostinger/top/?t=all
I see people incredibly upset about the poor customer service. That’s pretty accurate. Maybe I should not recommend them, I’ve had some similar issues but never terribly bad and I wrote it off as “jank.” That’s why it’s cheap. When did anyone say it’s a scam or they extort extra money?
They play the long game, first 3 years will prob be chill, once you're stuck with them https://www.reddit.com/r/Domains/comments/1big23f/hostinger_domain_renewal_scamming_hostinger_is_a/
Their domain expired a month ago, this is pretty normal for a registrar to do with expired domains.
Where do you see this? Whois says:
That's also what sav.com says under domain details "Expiration Date."
Whois also says "client transfer prohibited." Fucking scumbags. Don't give them money.
Just off whois on linux, but I'm not clear why it lists two different sets of dates. I'm guessing querying the root whois vs the registrar, and hexbear is currently in the process of fixing their domain which is why one set is 2026.
Unless the +1 year date is the registrar holding it for themselves to auction off, which seems equally likely.
Yeah, that's what it is. Whois actually explained it to me, and I didn't bother to read it the first time. I made an edit.
Not them, but here you go
Edit: Okay, I figured it out.
So, as I had guessed, sav.com registered it "for them" for one year more than they actually wanted to register, and then when there was some minor billing issue, used it as an opportunity to do a cash grab. Fuck sav.com, is basically what I'm saying.
Previous comment, before the edit:
IDK what's going on with that web site, but it's wrong. Or, sav.com updated something to backdate the expiration or something else shady like that.
I trust running whois more than I trust a web site. Like I say, I have no explanation why they would be wrong, but they're wrong. Maybe sav.com registers it "on behalf of" their clients, and sets the meta-expiration one year after to give them time to fuck around with auctions? Something weird like that? And then it's only paid until last month, and because a card had expired or something trivial like that, they decided to throw it into this auction process?
~~As much as I think it's funny to make fun of Hexbear, I don't think people should be celebrating them getting fucked over by criminals.~~
Edit: They're over on chapo.chat now, blaming the whole thing not on sav.com, or on themselves for choosing a registrar for an important server without doing due diligence, but on DNS itself and the architects of the internet. I take it back. Fuck 'em.
https://chapo.chat/post/4468515
Wtf are you talking about??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Thats one user being unhappy with how the system functions
They are clearly blaming the admin going AWOL and not paying, and themselves for not getting the domain transfered.
https://chapo.chat/c/chapotraphouse?dataType=Post&sort=TopDay
https://chapo.chat/post/4468515?sort=Top
I did see the much more reasonable post from the site admin. That one was fine, I should have made that clear. I was mocking the users of the site freaking out, to broad and sustained applause, over how DNS is a capitalist plot when it is just about the furthest thing from it that exists on the modern internet.
I also thought it was funny that they found some GNU tool that was a replacement, but then freaked out minorly because in the docs it talks about some issue related to censorship of the Chinese internet, and we are not allowed to talk about that, that is a bad thought, it's not real it's not real.
Also, this is absolutely true:
I don't know why it hasn't been shared, or picked up by anyone else. Lemmy.ml if nowhere else. I never really browsed Hexbear on its own instance before today. It's a little bit garish, on purpose, but not overly much and it all fits together and looks peaceful and attractive. It is not "show me the UX equivalent of a pile of unvarnished planks" like the default theming.
Edit: Just in case it's not clear, I am fully and sincerely saying that Hexbear's theme looks really good. IDK what they did but they did a good job.
Something's wrong with you if you think Chinese censorship is denied anywhere... It's just funny to contrast coverage in the west to how little discussion there is of our owners' budget for counterrevolutionary activities and propaganda and sabotage and espionage against any country making its own decision. Let alone illegal sanctions, invasions, occupations... Or neverending examples of states which acquiesced simply being exploited by collaborators. As if there's no reasonable historical explanation for such a censorship regime to have ever existed... As the US rolls out its own versions of Web censorship.
https://chapo.chat/post/4468515/5913728
That's the thing in context. If someone made a tool for you to use, out of the goodness of their heart, but acknowledges the simple fact of Chinese censorship, and that disgusts you, there is something wrong with you and you're trying to engineer the world and reality to conform to your dogma.
Like DNS, GNU is some of the most successful communist-paradigm stuff that any of us ever interact with day-to-day. Singling it out for criticism and disgust unless it hews the line exactly of how you want to demand it contextualizes its true facts about anything, making excuses for a regime a lot more authoritarian than surely-problematic Western governments, is absurd.
They are still the same
They literally had the chance to renew at the low price and just put it off and lost contact with whoever owned the domain, for some reason they didn't have multiple users with the login. Easy way toa void this wouldve been transferring the domain to the person hosting and paying the 12$ within the year they had to do it.
They probably survive, but they will basically be switching infrastructure and losing all sorts of shit, so their size will be much smaller and weaker.