Question 1

What is WHOIS?

Accepted Answer

WHOIS is a public database that records who owns a domain name, when it was registered, when it expires, the registrar handling it, and which name servers it uses. The classic WHOIS protocol runs on port 43 in plain text, while RDAP is its modern, structured, HTTPS-based successor.

Question 2

Is this a real WHOIS lookup?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The tool queries the public RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) endpoint of the appropriate registry directly from your browser, which is the modern equivalent of a traditional WHOIS query. RDAP returns the same ownership, registration and nameserver data as WHOIS, with the bonus of structured JSON.

Question 3

Does it work for all TLDs?

Accepted Answer

RDAP is supported by most major registries including .com, .net, .org, .io, .dev, .app, .ai and many country codes. A few smaller TLDs still publish only legacy WHOIS. If RDAP data is not available for the queried TLD, the tool will tell you.

Question 4

Are my queries private?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The tool sends the query directly from your browser to the public RDAP endpoint of the registry. No data is sent to any GameZipper server, and we never see what you look up.