21,864 Yugoslavian .yu domains

(jacobfilipp.com)

59 points | by freediver 1 day ago

8 comments

  • Zecc 59 minutes ago
    I don't remember which HN thread I've heard this joke originally from, but...

    People in Montenegro: it's not .yu, it's .me

  • ymolodtsov 12 hours ago
    It's interesting that while .yu was killed off, .su (Soviet Union) still exists and you can buy them today.
    • qingcharles 9 minutes ago
      And there is now a whole issue over .io that might disappear in the near future and take thousands of SaaS and AI companies with it.
    • mapmeld 1 hour ago
      According to an article from last year, .su might get retired by 2030

      Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43351793

      • the_mitsuhiko 11 minutes ago
        That is more political than otherwise. SU and EU both are exceptional reservations in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.
    • ChocolateGod 12 hours ago
      I would assume because the Soviet Union had a recognised successor state (being the Russian Federation), where as Yugoslavia did not have a recognised successor state.
    • voidUpdate 12 hours ago
      Students Unions all over the world are very happy about that
    • sigmoid10 12 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • whatsupdog 12 hours ago
        > At this point the old name is the only thing still missing.

        And about 14 countries.

        • sigmoid10 11 hours ago
          More like 11 and a half by now. Or actually 10 and three quarters, depending on how you count. They are tirelessly working on bringing that number down.
        • giancarlostoro 4 hours ago
          You really think they'll stop after 14? Because I do not.
      • vrganj 12 hours ago
        As is the geopolitical relevance and power.
      • dragonwriter 12 hours ago
        An even superficial ideological orientation toward Marxism-Leninism is also missing.
        • cestith 3 hours ago
          We’d be living in a different world if Trotsky had succeeded Lenin.
      • konart 12 hours ago
        How so? I understand you are talking about Ukrainian and Georgian wars, but even them are hardly an attempt to return to SU days.

        I'm not even talking about very limited influence over other ex-USSR republics. It is there but very limited.

        • sigmoid10 11 hours ago
          It's not just that. Putin and his gang are actively pushing what is now referred to as neo-sovietism:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Sovietism

          • konart 8 hours ago
            Yes, but again - this more about their afforts to appeal to a certain part of domestic popularion rather than a fair attempt of rebuilding USSR.

            It's more about "ice cream for 47 kopecks" rathan then anything else.

            • mschuster91 2 hours ago
              > this more about their afforts to appeal to a certain part of domestic popularion

              And yet, more than a million Russian lives alone were sacrificed to make the appeal reality.

              Russia, like it or not, is actively busy restoring its older glorious days and unfortunately there is no sign of them coming anywhere near to a point where they can't sustain their losses any more. They're permanently losing upwards of 1000 soldiers per day, and that's not counting the injured, only deaths.

          • anthk 9 hours ago
            There's no Neo-Sovietism but Duginism. It's a like an even more hardcore version of the Spanish Francoism but a la Slavic way.

            They hate science and praise the Orthodox ideology with high statism. And without a country-loving science China it's just getting a luxury present for free themselves.

            They will progress like crazy with very little efforth and they could buy Russian assets for scraps.

        • LunaSea 12 hours ago
          You're missing Moldova as well.

          And yes, Russia keeps invading, hacking, politically pressuring and organising disinformation campaigns to make these ex-USSR countries fall back into Russia's bloody wing.

          • konart 8 hours ago
            Sure, but so far this has nothing to do with bringing USSR back.
            • LunaSea 8 hours ago
              Yup, just a coincidence.
  • voidUpdate 13 hours ago
    Is there a practical way to enumerate all the registered internet domains? EG by asking DNS servers for all the domains they know about, and repeating over all DNS servers they know about?

    EDIT: apparently, "asking DNS servers for all the domains they know about" is not something you can really do anymore for security reasons. Guess that idea won't fly lol

  • charcircuit 13 hours ago
    The ICANN policy of removing TLDs just because a country no longer exists makes no practical sense and only serves to break the internet.
    • onion2k 12 hours ago
      Yugoslavia broke into several smaller countries following the death of the Yugoslavian dictator, and a huge war ensued. Maintaining the domain records was probably quite a low priority.
      • bojan 3 hours ago
        You got the timeline wrong.

        The break-up of Yugoslavia was a long, arguably still on-going, process, the final phase of which happened peacefully. Serbia and Montenegro, that made the post-1992 Yugoslavia, agreed in 2003 to change the name of the country to Serbia and Montenegro, pending the Montenegrin independence referendum scheduled for 2006.

        Considering the possibility of another country name depreciation in three years, they agreed to keep the yu domain.

        Fun fact, had the Montenegrin referendum gone the other way, the plan was to use .cs as the national domain, which used to be owned by another ex-country, Czechoslovakia.

      • 1-more 1 hour ago
        I assume you're referring to Tito? He died in 1980. None of the constituent countries tried to leave Yugoslavia until 1991, right? That's following, technically, but there's a lot of history in that decade. From my very vibes based knowledge of the area, Tito is the only dude who could have held it together though.
      • input_sh 12 hours ago
        .yu was purchasable long after the country ceased to exist, until 2008 to be exact.

        Technically speaking, "Yugoslavia" continued to exist until 2003, when the name finally got deprecated in favour of "Serbia & Montenegro" as one country (also including the territory of Kosovo), which itself only lasted 3 years before Montenegro declared independence (and Kosovo did the same 2 years after).

        So however you spin it, the domain outlived the country by at least 5 years, arguably 15(ish), 9 of which were post-war(s).

      • charcircuit 12 hours ago
        The organization that ran the nameservers for .yu still exists today. Even in the case where there was no one fit to run them, all the records could be transferred to ICANN or someone else to run the server.
    • Scoundreller 13 hours ago
      Now I want to try writing letters and see if they still get delivered if I write down the predecessor country.
      • input_sh 12 hours ago
        Some of the modern-day countries retained their five-digit postcodes from Yugoslav times (Serbia and Bosnia for sure, maybe a few more, I'm too lazy to check), some only got rid of the first digit which used to identify individual Yugoslav republics (AKA modern-day countries).

        So I'd say it's highly likely they'd be delivered, as it's still mostly the same, though I should point out many cities changed names since. For like the most basic example, Montenegro's capital was called Titograd between WW2 and 1992, before it swapped back to being called Podgorica.

        • Gare 1 hour ago
          In Croatia only Zagreb got changed to 10 000 (because capital), the rest stayed the same.
      • sensanaty 12 hours ago
        I've encountered a surprising number of forms where "Serbia" isn't an option, but Yugoslavia is, even in 2026. There's been a number of times here in the Netherlands where I had to pick Yugoslavia as my place of birth on official government forms because we were technically still Yugoslavia in '98 and not Serbia and Montenegro.

        I have no doubts that snail mail addressed to Yugoslavia still exists and probably gets routed just fine

      • sznio 13 hours ago
        Considering how my parents still refer to that area of the world as Yugoslavia, I'm pretty sure the postal system will know how to route it. Will probably be escalated to a human for labeling though.
      • otabdeveloper4 12 hours ago
        There's hundreds of thousands of websites with the .su domain.

        (The USSR dissolved before the world-wide-web was even a thing.)

        If Barclays can get their own vanity TLD then Yugoslavia should be able too.

        • martheen 12 hours ago
          Granted, ccTLDs has been already going on for years before USSR change their pronoun to were. Mostly for email, no idea if ccTLDs found their use on BBS.

          I can understand .su continuing because Russia pretty much took over everything that represent Soviet Union elsewhere (embassies, Security Council seat, etc) and other former Soviet states either support the continuation or indifferent. Yugoslavia continuation is more contentious topic.

          • vasac 25 minutes ago
            Russia pretty much took over all the USSR's external debts too.
    • kome 12 hours ago
      fully agree. also Yugoslavia lives on, in our heart :,)
      • grujicd 11 hours ago
        Core of Yugoslavia, still lives on in cultural space, where music, movies, and literature are consumed in all ex republics. Except probably Kosovo, which was not part of serbo-croatian linguistic space. But even in Slovenia and Macedonia there's a significant part of population which at least understands common language. And it's not only about language, there's lot of shared mentality and history from Yugoslav period.
        • foobarian 1 hour ago
          Kusturica's movie "Underground" captures the Yugoslav vibe quite vividly, highly recommend
        • 1-more 1 hour ago
          > Except probably Kosovo, which was not part of serbo-croatian linguistic space.

          The Albanian speaking countries really punch above their weight for English language pop stars with global presence. ~7.5 Million Albanian speakers globally gave us Bebe Rexha, Dua Lipa, Ava Max, and Rita Ora. 22 Million Romanian speakers for a comparable post-Communist community and I don't think I know any pop stars with that background off the top of my head.

          • Gare 55 minutes ago
            > and I don't think I know any pop stars with that background off the top of my head.

            But Romania gave us the Dragostea din tei (Numa-numa song :)

            • 1-more 44 minutes ago
              A beautiful global phenomenon whose artist I sadly cannot name.
      • UncleSlacky 12 hours ago
        Sadly even Cyber Yugoslavia is no more, it only shows the text "juga.com" now:

        https://web.archive.org/web/20220122221632/http://www.juga.c...

        http://www.juga.com/

      • vrganj 12 hours ago
        Bratstvo i jedinstvo, druže.
        • foobarian 1 hour ago
          Mi smo Titovi, Tito je naš!
  • vrganj 12 hours ago
    The fall of Yugoslavia was a horrible tragedy and a stark example of the horrors of nationalism.

    Neighbors, brothers, friends, who spoke the same language and occupied the same cultural space, suddenly reduced to their narcissism of small differences and committing horrible atrocities in the name of a tribe.

    And for what? For the chance of living in a dysfunctional rump state with nowhere near the relevance of what they used to have.

    • ungovernableCat 0 minutes ago
      If Yugoslavia had survived it'd have the relevance of maybe a combined Bulgaria and Romania today.

      Slovenia and Croatia were the most developed parts of it and would be burdened by fiscal transfers to undeveloped regions of Bosnia Macedonia and Kosovo. I'd argue Croats and Slovenians enjoy a higher quality of living with a government that can focus on the needs of its own citizens.

      You don't need political relevance or even resources to develop a great country. Look at Denmark as an example.

    • nradov 1 hour ago
      The fall of Yugoslavia was a tragedy in a sense, but on the other hand maybe it should have never existed as a single state in the first place. It was always an artificial construct with the central government barely holding the country together, sort of like Iraq. People can mourn the loss but it was doomed from the start.
      • vrganj 48 minutes ago
        Every country is an artificial construct.
    • collabs 12 hours ago
      I saw a YouTube short video recently that claimed something that might seem obvious to many but not to me — it claimed then Prime Minister of UK and the President of France were displeased by the reunification of Germany because their own countries' relative status would go down. Is this really how people think?

      Is this how our allies think?

      • 1-more 1 hour ago
        > Is this how our allies think?

        The old quip about NATO is that its purpose was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. I don't know how much that really reflected elite sentiment or not.

        EDIT: well it was coined by the first Secretary General of NATO so make of that what you will https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay

      • stkdump 12 hours ago
        Yes, France had the idea to weaken Germany in exchange by forcing it off the D-Mark. A move that unexpectedly had the opposite effect and further strengthened Germany's economy.

        In post war Germany the sentiment of relative status compared to our allies in the most powerful people was mostly gone. You can expect as we move more towards the right, and WW2 gets more and more forgotten, it will come back.

      • UncleSlacky 12 hours ago
        I don't think it was concern about relative status, more the risk that a reunited Germany could once again become a significant economic/military power that could threaten the stability of Europe.
      • rrr_oh_man 12 hours ago
        I love reading historical documents, and this is how people have been thinking for as long as there is recorded history.
      • wiseowise 11 hours ago
        > I saw a YouTube short video recently

        You could’ve stopped there.

      • vrganj 12 hours ago
        Why do you think the Trump admin is so set on sabotaging the EU?

        They even put it into their National Security Strategy: https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/12/make-europe-great-...

      • thaumasiotes 1 hour ago
        Did you miss all the explicit American messaging about "we need to keep China down, or else it might surpass us"?
      • RobotToaster 12 hours ago
        It's how the psychopaths in charge think
    • revolution88 12 hours ago
      When you say it like that, it sounds like we didn't have a side that started all wars, like we killed each other for fun. And it was all because of the "all Serbs in one state" ideology.
      • vasac 17 minutes ago
        So Croats and Muslims fought each other bloodily because all Serbs wanted to live in one state? Funnily enough, they were already living in one state - Yugoslavia - so they certainly had no reason to start the war.
      • vrganj 12 hours ago
        Brate, this is exactly the toxic nationalism that caused this all.

        No side is without blame. Everyone did horrible things, everyone is trying to tune out their own atrocities and emphasize the ones committed by the others.

        Yes, the Serbs did horrible crimes. But ask the population of Mostar if the Croats were without blame. Ask Serbs how they felt about their treatment by Bosniaks in Čelebići.

        As long as we keep this pretense of "our side good, other side bad", we are falling for the same trap that caused this mess in the first place.

        Bratstvo i jedinstvo, a ništa drugo.

        • revolution88 12 hours ago
          ICTY has the same conclusion as you, except it is totally opposite :) It can't be only "everyone did horrible things", and to talk the same about the aggressor and the victims. Yes, all sides did SOME horrible things, but one side started all of it, did the majority of the horrible things, and has 99% of the ones prosecuted by ICTY. What the hell was JNA doing in Bosnia when Bosnia was an independent country? Gradjanski rat, ali u qrcu. Bratstvo i jedinstvo umrlo s Titom.
          • vrganj 12 hours ago
            This whole category of thinking in terms of sides is the problem in the first place. Thinking in these categories only strengthens the nationalist prosecution complex that drives the hatred in the first place.

            Which subethnicity started it or whatever doesn't fucking matter., this whole line of thinking only leads to more hatred, more destruction, more dysfunction.

            As a Croat, my enemy is not my fellow Yugoslav, my enemy is the nationalist thugs on all sides that destroyed my country so they could rule over their hateful little fiefdoms.

            Bratstvo i jedinstvo is coming back, under a blue flag with yellow stars. Montenegro is joining the EU next, with Schengen etc bratstvo i jedinstvo between crna gora and hrvatska will be restored.

            • foobarian 1 hour ago
              I think the problem is every tribe/nation/area has a percent of psychopaths (the estimates are 1 in 25), and if they run unchecked they end up doing evil things. This can then echo as the other side seeks retribution, etc. It takes significant effort to stomp out the fire.
  • jjallen 1 hour ago
    For kicks and giggles and because my wife was born in Yugoslavia I bought Yugoslavia.org a few years ago. Would like to do something meaningful with it.
    • ajcp 56 minutes ago
      Just select one of the 5 successor states to Yugoslavia, forward all traffic to their ministry of foreign affairs, and then enjoy the heartfelt exchange of brotherly love and munitions that ensues!
      • user_7832 33 minutes ago
        I suppose I was mistaken, or perhaps outdated, in getting my geopolitical news from the NYT instead of HN comments apparently.
  • anthk 12 hours ago
    Damn ethnic nationalism... in the end it was just profit for local psychos dealing with their own ethnics like sheeple.

    If Yugoslavia got a political transition as it happened in Spain to a social-democracy, (and yet the Spanish constitution states that all goods belong to the state in case of general intereset, such as a great catastrophe), they would evolve together and wars would have been a thing of the past.

    As an anecdote, read about the creation of the Warajevo ZX emulator, a cross-ethnic colaboration from several Yugo people to get spare PC parts and books while avoiding snipers.

    BTW: a country not existing is not an excuse. The Catalan language stretch over Spain, Andorra (the official language) and a bit of France and Italy. Ditto with the Basque language (and .eus domain).

    .Yu could be reused for content written in Serbo-Croatian language. Ah, yes, the Cyrillic script, but today that task would be trivial, and I'm pretty sure that due to the exposure to the Latin scripts the Serbians can read Croatian texts perfectly fine.

    • vasac 13 minutes ago
      Both scripts have been taught in the early years of elementary school in Serbia for the past 80 years.
    • petu 12 hours ago
      > BTW: a country not existing is not an excuse.

      for ccTLD it is, Catalan and Basque language TLDs are a different type / 3 letters.

    • dolia 12 hours ago
      Just out of interest, are you coming from the area?
    • whatsupdog 12 hours ago
      > Damn ethnic nationalism

      Nice to see you here Trudeau!

  • seydor 3 hours ago
    Yugoslavia was a great thing that europe lost, and perhaps it shouldn't have. The EU membership and shengen area might make a big impact in the region though.