This is going to turn out to have been a huge mistake once the actual .crypto is added as a real TLD to root DNS come ICANN's round 2 expansion of new gTLDs.
If you think ICANN is some sort of magical organization that should get to decide all TLDs, just vote with your feet and don't use Opera.
Think of what a disaster this is going to be if .crypto is launched for real in a few years. Opera is likely going to go with the real .crypto in the root DNS, thus dumping all these blockchain ones, but even if they don't, there's the problem that now .crypto domains will resolve differently in Opera than in all other browsers. That is a security/usability nightmare.
> If you think ICANN is some sort of magical organization that should get to decide all TLDs
There's nothing magical about ICANN whatsoever, and the normative claim you're making here is irrelevant. They are the organization that decides TLDs, period, and pretending that they aren't when the other 99.999% of users and devices on the Internet do use root DNS and root DNS only is a recipe for disaster.
Let me put it in different terms: ICANN currently has a monopoly on the issuance of new TLDs that has so far banked hundreds of millions of dollars for them. There's no way in hell they're going to voluntarily give up this monopoly and just let any random people start a new TLD without going through them.
I assume that if .crypto becomes a TLD, Opera will default to DNS lookup first.
It would have made much more sense to define a new URI scheme.
ICANN is a corrupt organization that has usurped the power to delegate all names, relegating all of them¹ to their² DNS system where, ever since gTLDs, they may be expected lend just about any name. In effect, you are expected not to use a hostname, even on a local network, without paying tribute.
IMO, ICANN needs to be put down, or put to its place, as they do not have a natural right to all hostnames. If they wish to remain an authority on hostnames, they should reserve names for other uses besides DNS.
And stop with the gTLDs - it they give out all interesting TLDs, then there can't be non-colliding alternatives. IMO, if they collide, both are to blame, but ICANN more so than Opera, as they apparently reserve 0 viable host name hierarchies for uses other than DNS.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, some details may be incorrect.
¹ AFAIK exceptions are reserved TLDs: test, example, invalid and localhost. Not really a place for an alternate name system.
² AFAIK there used to be alternative DNS roots.
People use alternative name systems. They can be used with existing protocols and URIs. It's explicitly supported - neither local hosts file nor avahi are DNS. Problem is you need names to use, and you can't really pick non-conflicting ones, if any new gTLDs may be issued by ICANN.
There are alternative name systems, mostly using unique alternative TLDs and AFAIK none of them are registered or reserved at ICANN. I presume ICANN doesn't support it, or they want payments as in gTLDs. Payments for protection against future conflicts, not for a service as they do not resolve in DNS.
The article may not be clear, but AFAICT *.crypto are in fact resolving domains (among doing other things). When I install support for crypto names on my system, am I supposed to use something like:
ping crypto:<domain>
ping --crypto <domain>
I agree appropriating .crypto in particular may be a bit presumptuous. At the same time, one might expect .crypto to be administered by crypto, in whatever chaotic way people side with, along with the ensuing brokenness.
The best advice is to use a REAL name, that you own. The second best advice is to, if for some reason you insist on using a fake name, pick something with a low probability of causing collisions. .crypto has a very high probability of causing collisions and is thus a terrible choice.
But ICANN would have no qualms whatsoever about selling a TLD just because some other people claimed authority over it they didn't actually have and started misusing it.
The bigger issue is that a lot of people use .dev for internal/development uses, and it should therefore never been made into a "real" TLD in the first place. It's like deciding to sell "example.com" to someone.
EDIT: so would this mean that registering a .dev for some BigCo domain could potentially cause problems? Curious what the real-world implications might be.
I could've swore .local was okay, as that's what I use. But maybe not. Apparently it can cause issues with Macs, but that's new to me seeing as how I primarily develop on one.