Insites Consulting carried out a survey on behalf of DNS Belgium into domain name extensions to gain an understanding of the domain name market. Part of the survey was to establish how extensive the knowledge about domain names is: what they are, what you do with them, why it is important, and which extensions are known about. Which factors influence a user’s trust, or otherwise, in a website?

The survey focused on four different groups: the average Belgian, the TLD users (those who have already registered one or more domains), enterprising persons (those who are interested in running a business but have not yet registered a domain name), and potential TLD users (enterprising persons and average Belgians who intend to register a domain name in the future).

The ICT news site Computable chose “our” Jonas, CEO of Combell, as IT Person of the Year. The jury praised him for his commitment, including to his staff. Congratulations, Jonas!

Strong competition

This is the fourth time that the editors of Computable, the news site for ICT professionals with a focus on Belgium, have presented their IT Person of the Year award. In the past, serial entrepreneur Peter Hinssen, Dominique Leroy (CEO of Proximus) and Danielle Jacobs (General Manager of Beltug) already won this title. But this year, the jury chose Jonas Dhaenens, founder and CEO of Combell.

It was originally announced that the transition from Comodo to Sectigo SSL certificates would only involve a change of name and logo. However, it now turns out that there has also been a change in the root structure, which is causing problems for some customers. So, here is a news update...

A change in the root structure

In our article entitled “The brand of your SSL certificate undergoes a name change: Comodo is now Sectigo”, we announced that this process would involve a purely external change in the name and logo to be used for the SSL certificate.

We are proud to present our new website! Our well-known offering and services now come in a new, contemporary style. A new corporate identity, cleverly designed to reflect Combell's values and to highlight our extensive professional range. But there is more to it than just picking a colour. Let us take you behind the scenes to discover months of preparatory work.

Combell celebrates its 20th anniversary

It is quite a big step, from the small one-man business that 16-year-old Jonas Dhaenens founded back in 1999, to nowadays' Combell, which hosts two thirds of Belgian websites.

Containers, Docker, Kubernetes… All these concepts are currently very trendy, and everyone is using them, or wants to use them. And this is no different at Combell. The technology has been on the radar for over five years and we have been using it in-house for quite a while now. Is it time to make an offer to our customers? Let us discuss this with Wesley, Thijs, Jachim and Maarten.

The evolution from virtualisation to containers has changed technology. But has it also changed the way of thinking about ICT?

From dedicated servers came virtualisation, and from there came the Cloud.

In 2018, Antwerp-based accounting firm VDV consultants decided to play it safe by having Combell handle their internal servers for them, which provides a higher level of protection and more flexibility. Employees can now work for customers remotely or on premises, and ICT is no longer an obstacle to the further growth of the office. “Above all, it brings us peace of mind”, says director Marc Van Gysel.

Good advice is definitely worth paying for. With advice on business, tax, accounting, bookkeeping and legal matters, the ‘Van der Steen, Diels, Van Gysel’ firm focuses primarily on companies and liberal professions.

.eu domains are reserved for companies, organisations and private individuals based in the EU. With Brexit, British companies and residents lose the right to use their .eu domain. And that may happen as early as 30 March 2019. So, what is going on? And what concrete steps can you take?

European Commission regulation on .eu domains

In March 2018, the European Commission already ruled on the consequences that Brexit would have on .eu domain holders. “As of the withdrawal date, undertakings and organisations that are established in the United Kingdom but not in the EU and natural persons who reside in the United Kingdom will no longer be eligible to register .eu domain names or, if they are .eu registrants, to renew .eu domain names registered before the withdrawal date.” (EURid: Brexit Notice)

This measure applies to all domain holders (registrants) with a GB (Great Britain) or GI (Gibraltar) country code.

The PHPBenelux conference in Edegem was once again a success. There was an exhilarating atmosphere in the hallways, some interesting talks to gain new insights, and many cordial networking moments. Here is how this special day went…

10 years PHPBenelux, and 20 years Combell

It has already been 10 years since the first big day of the PHP programming language was held. From a small conference organised by the local community, which attracted 150 participants from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, PHPBenelux has now grown into an international event, spread over 2 days.

From DNS Flag Day onwards, all DNS servers will have to comply with the new EDNS standard. Otherwise, the domains they point to will become unreachable. Why this important step? And is your website at risk of being taken offline?

Why EDNS is necessary

EDNS (Extension Mechanisms for DNS), a new standard that offers the DNS protocol more possibilities, has been under development since 1999. EDNS could, for example, be used to build in DNS Cookies. And that would be a major leap forward in the fight against DDoS attacks, which are based on abuse of the DNS protocol.

Ghent-based start-up DataScouts helps companies build and implement their marketing strategy and business development. Publicly available information is brought together using dozens of sources, which helps provide better visibility and decision-making. “Companies find it difficult to make such information exploitable by themselves, which is why we help them overcome the difficulties they encounter in carrying out this task”, says DataScouts CEO Ingrid Willems.

In many sectors, the competitive landscape is changing ever faster. Market conditions are often volatile. For both young and established organisations, small and large, it is now of vital importance to be able to react quickly.

In collaboration with the FPS Economy, DNS Belgium will be able to take fraudulent .be websites offline more quickly. What does this measure actually do? 

The success of e-commerce also attracts cybercriminals

Users are now clearly getting used to shop on web stores. According to BeCommerce, Belgians spent 7.89 billion euros in online purchases in the first three quarters of 2018, which is an increase of 7% compared to the same period in 2017. Yet dark clouds are on the horizon, because the growing success of e-commerce is also attracting criminals, who are trying to swindle users.

Should you use ‘www’ in your domain name for your communication? Are there SEO-related or any other technical reasons why one solution is better than another? Here are a few tips that will help you make your choice.

The dilemma

The time has long since passed when you had to type very long web addresses like https://www.mycompanyname.com into your browser. Today, you can simply leave out ‘https://’, and even ‘www’. Technology has evolved in such a way that in both cases, your browser will be redirected to the correct web address – whether you are typing www.mycompanyname.com, http://mycompanyname.com or even mycompanyname.com.