The Top-Level Domain (TLD) for ‘.dev’ is a secure domain operated by Google that is intended for developers and technology-oriented websites. It was introduced into the DNS root in the Secure Namespace on January 16, 2019, by Google Registry.
Before 2019, .dev was used internally by Google for their own development purposes. However, given the rising need for a dedicated domain for developers and technology activities, Google decided to make .dev a public domain. This was done as part of Google’s initiative to secure and maintain a friendly online space for developers, enthusiasts, and technology professionals.
One of the unique voluntary features of .dev is that it requires HTTPS to connect to any .dev website. This is in line with Google’s ongoing effort to promote a more secure internet. Google is the owner of a preloaded HSTS list, to which they added .dev and thus enforcement of HTTPS for this TLD is not optional, but mandatory. This means every new .dev website will be automatically added to the HSTS preload list, making HTTPS required on all connections to .dev websites and pages. HSTS is short for HTTP Strict Transport Security, it’s a web security policy mechanism that helps to protect websites against man-in-the-middle attacks such as protocol downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking.
Examples of sites using the .dev TLD include those from major tech companies like GitHub, which uses github.dev as a development space for learning, experimenting, and building directly on github.com. Another example is slack.dev, a developer resource for building applications that integrate with Slack. Other examples include openai.dev (an artificial intelligence research lab) and vuejs.dev (official site for Vue.js, a JavaScript Framework).
It’s also worth noting that while .dev is pitched as a TLD for developers, it’s open to anyone to register, not just developers or technology professionals.
Sources for further information include Google’s official blog, relevant personal blogs of tech influencers who documented the domain’s launch, Websites like gTLD.today that graph the adoption of new TLDs, DNS data from ZoneMaster, and ICANN’s TLD acceptance database.
Sources:
1. Google Registry – c/o Google (2019) Google Registry’s New Domains
2. Chromium’s HSTS preload list – chromium.org.
3. Ghacks.net (2019) Google’s .dev top-level domain available.
4. Doug Smith, Director of Product Management, SRE, and Chris Thompson, Software Engineer (2018) A secure web is here to stay – Google Security Blog
5. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Website.
6. Reports from gTLD.today and ZoneMaster.
