A reader emailed me and asked:

Any particular reason you went with Hover? I’ve been around too long and don’t like any of the registrars that I’ve tried over the years.

This is a totally fair take and largely matches my own experience… except with Hover, at least so far! Here’s what I wrote in reply:

Long story short, I tried them a decade ago when they were doing podcast ads on a bunch of the tech podcasts I listened to, and their pitch was and is “we’ll treat you like a human being, including real human support”. They still say on their website:

Have a question? Connect with a friendly human via phone, email or live chat. No bots. No annoying phone trees.

My experience with them bears that out. I have almost never needed support from them, and never from their side. The couple of times I have needed help have been for things transferring domains in from other vendors who were some variety of janky and weird and unhelpful, and Hover’s support has been fantastic and exactly as advertised in those cases.