Stephen Fry, the legendary British actor, comedian and television presenter – and Internet and technology enthusiast – has become the first person to switch to the .uk domain.
Stephen Fry has been a vocal critic of Britain’s existing co.uk domain as its only national domain. In a post on his blog, Fry wryly asks what the Britons ever did to the Internet to deserve the inconvenience of typing three extra symbols, unlike the French, Germans and Italians who have the relatively simple .fr, .de and .it for national domains. The actor even registered his website stephenfry with .com, not co.uk on principle.
Starting today, Stephen Fry’s website will be available at stephenfry.uk. “Fret no more, people of Britain. The day of .uk is upon us,” Fry wrote.
The British domain registry Nominet, which initiated the move to .uk, made the world's largest welcome sign – reading 'welcometothe.uk' – at Heathrow airport to publicize this major change to the UK internet infrastructure. Measuring nearly 930 square meters, and visible from as high as 10,700 meters, the sign is a sure contender for the Guinness Book of World Records.
