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The head says it. D-Link Dynamic DNS (DDNS) service will soon be discontinued for good.
The networking vendor sent out an email to some of its customers today to announce the discontinuation of the free DDNS, which has always been part of its home Wi-Fi routers’ feature set, starting July 02, 2020, or about 40 days from today.
This doesn’t mean you need to replace your router, but in some situations, changes will need to be made, and they should be done as soon as possible to avoid interruptions.
D-Link Dynamic DNS: A significant loss to some
Dynamic DNS is an essential feature of home routers. It allows for attaching the router’s WAN IP address with a meaningful domain name of the user’s choice, allowing them not to have to remember their WAN IP address, which regularly changes over time or when they restart their router/modem.
They can then use that domain to host various services at home, such as a VPN or a game server. DDNS is also an excellent way to dial home via a remote connection.
Like other networking vendors, such as Asus or TP-Link, D-Link has been offering a free host via the dlinkddns.com domain for its router’s Dynamic DNS feature.
Now, this valuable add-on service will soon come to an end, despite it still appearing as an option within your current router’s interface.
Here’s the full notice from D-Link:
Dear D-Link Customer,
The Dynamic DNS Service offered by D-Link (dlinkddns) will be discontinued on July 02, 2020. After this date, the service will no longer be useable.
What does this mean for you?
If you are currently using or plan to use the D-Link Dynamic DNS service, we recommend the use of another provider in order to avoid potential issues and service interruption that may occur.
For clarity, the Dynamic DNS feature of your device(s) remains functional. You may still set up Dynamic DNS utilizing an alternative provider via the D-Link setup WebGUI. However, if you still find dlinkddns.com as one of the options for a Dynamic DNS server during set up, please kindly be informed that this option will not function once the service is discontinued.
All other services will continue as normal.
Thank you for your understanding.
Will my router still work without D-Link Dynamic DNS?
As a software-based feature, DDNS doesn’t affect a router’s other functions, such as its wired or Wi-Fi network.
As you might have noted in the text, even the Dynamic DNS feature itself will still work on any D-Link routers. The only difference is that you’ll need to use it with a different host now.
Specifically, instead of the current host via dlinkddns, you attach it to one of a third party. It’s worth noting, however, that third-party DDNS services tend not to be charged.
To lessen the pain of this change, from now till at least July 02, D-Link offers a 50% discount if you choose to use Oracle Dyn, which generally costs $55/year.
You can learn more about Dynamic DNS in this post and have less than two months to make the necessary changes to your D-Link router.
The takeaway
This new development is somewhat of a hassle.
It’s only a big issue for those who use a lot of DDNS applications, which is generally rare for home routers. Most home users don’t even use this feature, and in this case, it will not affect them at all.
Still, it’s never good news to see a vendor jettison its hardware’s capability. Hopefully, this won’t start a trend where consumers get fewer and fewer values from their Wi-Fi routers.
Worse, they are selling routers (DSL-2888A) that are hard coded to only dyndns.org/com and noip (which won’t work as their servers are ddns.net etc. need dotted name). So it is impossible to use a free DDNS service with them.
This is partly why I don’t use D-Link routers anymore, Dougal.
Well, I have (for now) a D-Link Router & 4 D-Link DNS 323 NAS devices, and like others, this is absolutely a deal breaker. Time to leave D-link in the dust. My NAS devices only have an option for dlinkddns & dyndns, and no way I’m paying so much cash for a service that was supposed to be free. Bye D-link…
I hear you, Paul. Asus routers come with a free DDNS and they even include a free SSL certificate. You should use Synology when it comes to NAS servers though.
Yep I didn’t receive an email either and it was using my main Gmail account. I just realised I’m not even using my D-Link router any more (D-Link AC2600) and instead I’m using my Netgear Nighthawk AC1900, have to check which is the better router (and if Netgear do a free DDNS).
Nobody I know who was using this service, including myself, received that email.
(My email address is still the same as when I started the dlinkddns.com service.)
Must have been a nasty surprise. Sorry to hear, Kremmen.
So I disconnected my D-Link 3G-modem/router and bought an ASUS instead. Asus still provides DDNS service.
It does, Jan, and includes a free SSL certificate, too, which is nice.
Well im done with Dlink this was a deal breaker!
I don’t blame you, Ashley.
No explanation at all why they’re ending it or even an apology? Very annoying, used it for years.
Nope, Paul. Cost cutting, I guess. You can still use the feature with another host, tho.
Ah, never got the email, now no website access anymore! Was my main reason for d-link, so thats finally gone. Wanted to go for new mesh routers anyway, and this was the only reason holding me back to go for another brand.Easy choice now.
The 50% discount link seems not to be working though.
This is bad. It was the reason why I have bought Dlink. I will never buy Dlink again.
Yeap. It’s sad news.