As you can see, I own the domain name vi.et, which is one of the very exclusive few .et domains that can be registered. There are only a handful of .et domains registered by others including:
- n.et
- intern.et
- p.et
- di.et
- s.et
- pock.et (Acquired by Read It Later, Inc)
- wallstre.et
With this relatively new domain extension not available for public registration at the moment, there are some issues with how browsers like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox treat the domain name with .et extension.
- Google Chrome issue: When I type “vi.et” in Google Chrome, it redirects me to Google Search for the term “vi.et” because the browser didn’t recognize .et domain name extension.
- Identity not verified on SSL certificate: When Secured Socket Layered connection is enabled for .et domains, browsers cannot recognize the identity of .et domain, therefore giving them a status of “Identity not verified.”
Good thing is, I’m doing my best to find solutions for the problem. Luckily, Cloudflare (my current DNS Host and Web Optimization provider), has been cooperative and professional at dealing with this problem. Here are what they have done trying to fix the problem:
- Submitting .et to Mozilla Domain List: You can see the ticket here. Because nearly all internet browsers use the same domain list that’s created by Mozilla, submitting the domain extension to Mozilla is a way to go. This is an attempt to fix the SSL certificate identity problem on browsers. The result: Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox can now identify .et domain properly. You can check out my domain as an example: https://vi.et on Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox (HTTPS represents SSL certified secured network) and see that they work properly. Unfortunately, it haven’t yet worked properly on Google Chrome. Therefore, Cloudflare went ahead with the next step.
- Submitting ticket to Google Chrome Bug Tracker: You can see the ticket here. Chrome browser might take longer to update, and I’m glad that Cloudflare helped me bring it to Google Chrome team’s attention. If this issue is fixed on Chrome, both issues mentioned above will be fixed, and the mission will be completed.
.et extension is valuable in itself because of growth potential in short domains and domain hacks. By raising awareness of its existence, browsers and other domain systems can recognize the extension, hence bringing .et to its intrinsic value.
P/S: It seems that Opera browser needs a fix on SSL issue too. However, it’s not as big of a deal as Chrome because Chrome is currently the most popular browser in the world, and Opera is the 5th with only 1.8% market share. So I’ll try to contact Opera in my spare time, but my main focus for the moment is Chrome.